


Freeborn

by Nilozot



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Bottom Dean, Child Abuse, Dom/sub, Fictional Religion & Theology, Intersex, Kink Meme, M/M, Magic, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, References to extreme underage, Sex Toys, Sexual Slavery, Unrelated Winchesters, Vaginal Sex, omega!dean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-04-30 13:31:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5165633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nilozot/pseuds/Nilozot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after Mary's ill-fated death, John acquires a quick-witted omega slave for multiple reasons: Protect and care for Sam. Warm his bed. Maybe teach the boy a bit of hunting, should he prove capable. But he didn't expect his own son to get so attached, or for Dean to lead to a profound rift between them, years down the road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. John, 1991

**Author's Note:**

> Full kink meme prompt here: http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/103453.html?thread=39147805#t39147805
> 
> Abridged version: "AU where Dean isn't John's son and where Mary didn't die until Sam was slightly older. When John's beta wife Mary dies, killed by a demon, he's told to buy himself an Omega. The Omega can look after his son, and warm his bed. John figures that one Omega is as good as another, even if the boy is still a bit young. Nobody thinks anything odd about a grown man mating a 12 year old Omega. But compared to Dean's original family, he's decent about it. He lets him sleep at the foot of the bed, instead of on the floor, lets him eat more than once every few days (aka when they remembered), and though he does use Dean for sex, (cockwarming, fucking him after coming home from a hunt, ...) and isn't exactly gentle, he's not specifically cruel about it either, giving Dean time to adjust, and at least treating him like a person rather than an object. So though John is hardly mate of the year, he's such an improvement on Dean's previous situation that to Dean, the Alpha is his hero, and he'd do anything to keep the man happy and keep him from getting rid of him. Dean bonds with Sam, but despite John's plan, Sam of course can't see Dean as his mother, the age difference is just too small. And to Sam's eyes, his father is abusing and taking advantage of Dean. Society is slowly changing though, and Sam is growing up in an environment where more and more people are starting to see Omegas as people, who should have full rights. And for Sam, the way his father treats what he can only see as his best friend/brother, is plain out wrong. I'd just like to see the difference between how Dean sees John's treatment of him, and how Sam sees it, and how that's reflected in the world surrounding them."
> 
> Author's notes: Dean is 12 in the opening chapters of the fic. I've made this more explicit slave!verse and altered A/B/O -- basically the omegas amount to a third/fourth sex, and alpha just means "master" -- but the dynamics of the prompt are the same.

What impressed John the most, when he first laid eyes on the soot-smeared child who would later be known as Dean, wasn't just that the omega slave had survived the demon and the demon's blue fire. It was that he had enough wits about him to save the family's dogs too, and to direct the panicked animals towards the malevolent creature, thus distracting it long enough to slip out a side door.

Unfortunately by that time, the old dry timbers supporting the second floor went up, and the entire human sleeping area crashed down just as the boy escaped. John arrived in time to box the demon and its hellfire and free the souls of its hapless human victims, though, so the locals were grateful, even though his actual paying clients had now literally vanished in smoke.

“Got a little away from you, didn't it?” the sheriff commented dryly, as John emerged from the smoldering wreckage. He had a couple deputies chasing the dogs down, and was coordinating the firemen to not douse John's spell for the duration. The omega boy knelt on the grass nearby, on the edge of his alpha family's property, eyes downcast and waiting for instructions.

John grunted. “Just got here this morning, and thought it was a minor haunting 'til your minister showed me the signs. Didn't think it would attack at a new moon, however. Unusual. Obviously I'll waive my fee, considering...” He waved a grimy hand at the collapsed house, now spitting blue smoke into the night's sky and sparking new fires with regular combustion, which the village firemen now had the go-ahead to clear.

The sheriff crooked his head, considering. “Well, we should compensate you, seeing how the demon would have gone on to pop up somewhere else. And I'm sure the Willoughbys would be grateful to know their relatives haven't met with eternal damnation. Might be a problem of disposal of this property, though. Messy and complicated, a whole family burning to death in a house. Have any use for one of the dogs? Good trainers, those Willoughbys.”

“So I see,” John lied. In truth the animals had panicked at the hellfire, which was understandable but meant they were useless to a hunter. “Wife died last year, so, honestly I could use a proper sitter more than a dog. What about, uh, him?” John nodded towards the child perched rock-still on the lawn. He tripped a moment over the “him,” but John was fairly certain the kid had been born a boy. Although most were born male, it could be hard to tell for sure, as they all had the same cut short hair, the same build and body type, and this deep into slaver's country, identical rough-spun rags to wear. “Can I talk with the boy?”

The sheriff winced with disgust, and John immediately regretted the poor choice of words. _“To_ the boy, I mean.” Here in Massachusetts Colony, land of the fanatical Traditionalists, it was illegal for omegas to speak unless a human life was in danger. _Of abominations_ _neither male nor female_ _and the soulless, they shall_ _neither_ _throw_ _lots nor speak,_ _and cast down among the beasts they shall_ _forever remain in bondage to the Lord_ _._ Yahaziel 3:23. Of course John was a Bible-fearing man, but he'd been raised Conformist and some of the extremes of the slave colonies never sat right. Ah well, live and let live. It was only business that brought him this close to the coast.

John walked over to the hunched figure, and gave the boy a once over before touching him. Tiny and obviously malnourished, so he might not be old enough to be responsible for Sammy. Hair was shaggy and unkempt, except in the back where omegas were required to keep their tattoos uncovered. The neck area appeared to have been sheared off with something dull, so spikes of light brown hair stood out in all directions. The now-deceased owners clearly hadn't been too concerned with keeping their omega properly fed or adorned, so the boy had taken care of the legalities himself. Another promising sign.

The omega was diligently staring hard at his hands on his knees, but John slowly pushed his head further forward and pulled down his smock in the back, to get a better look at his marks. John was no expert at the intricacies of slave tattoos, but these were basic. The symbol for male-turned-omega the largest, right where the spine became neck. Then his smaller family insignias above the shoulder blades: In the father position on the right, a common coastal family known for producing omegas; in the mother position, another smaller version of the male omega symbol. An ordinary child of the breeding farms, likely sold at age five, the traditional point omegas were officially reclassified as abominations and removed from their homes. The families were listed not just for genealogical purposes, but to ensure no omega could ever run back to their natal home.

What John assumed was the Willoughby insignia lay directly below the father symbol. In additional to the family and ownership marks there was a small “79” note for the year of his birth – twelve, then, John noted approvingly. Old enough to keep watch over Sammy and warm John's bed, young enough to train him up to John's satisfaction. The final two marks around the spine indicated that the boy was the product of a breeding line for sexual responsiveness, and that he'd been sterilized. Again, common for the breeding farms; they didn't want their centuries of hard-earned genetic cultivation released out into the public, where just anybody could begin popping out valuable new stock.

John released the boy's shirt collar, and took a step to the right to get a look at the front of him. He gently placed his fingers under the omega's chin to raise up his eyes to meet John's own. Which he did for a furtive second, before rolling them to one side in deference. The irises were a beautiful color, though maybe it was the blueish light. Reminded John of his mother-in-law's eyes, from the brief period of time they'd known each other, so very long ago.

“I'm going to ask you some questions now, boy. Nod if you understand.”

His head dropped down in a short bob, as if even that level of communication was ill-approved. John crouched down so he wasn't looming over the kid, hoping to get some honest responses.

“Did you release the dogs?” John asked. A nod _yes_.

“Did you mean to send them towards the demon?” _Yes._

“Why didn't you run upstairs and wake up your alphas when you saw the demon?”

The child paused, and then made a swirling upwards motion with his hand. Either he was referring to the hellsmoke or it was some kind of crude sign language, John couldn't tell which. He needed to stick to yes or no questions.

“Did you see signs of the demon before tonight?” _Yes._ John knew there had been signs, particularly of channeling on the part of the older daughter in the family. Which is why the local minister got involved, and why John had heard about it enough to get the job.

“Did you see signs this evening, before the fire?”

This time the boy's eyes flicked for an instant to the sheriff, who was watching the exchange in stony silence. _No._ Clearly a lie, but John let it go while they were in public. Sometimes treating omegas like they were witless animals had its consequences, as the Willoughbys had discovered.

“Where did the fire start? Common room?”

The boy shook his head _no,_ and pointed upwards.

“Bedrooms?” _Yes._ “The girl's bedroom?” _Yes._

Confirming John's theory. The Willoughby girl had been a medium, a lightening rod for all that was nasty and depraved in the underworld. He couldn't tell whether it had been a voluntary exploration into the darkness or she simply had an unfortunate mental weakness, but it didn't matter now.

“What was your job in the family? Take care of the animals?” _Yes._ “Feed 'em, keep the bedding clean, exercise, all that?” _Yes._ “What about cooking, you know how to do that?” Still _yes,_ although given the boy's state he surely hadn't been allowed to _eat_ much.

John stood up and turned back to the sheriff. “I'll take him, if a town offer of payment still stands.”

“Seems to be in decent shape, if a bit thin, so I understand. But don't you principally work out of the central country and plains? May as well throw away your money, boy'll run for the mountains by the end of the week.”

“I can handle my own property,” John replied.

The sheriff made a slow clicking sound with his teeth. “The problem is, technically, I don't have the authority to dispose of Ben Willoughby's property. A dog, they're not likely to miss, but a young pretty thing like that? Memorable.”

John didn't blink at the change of heart. Likely the sheriff had decided that the boy was worth more than John Winchester's fee, so some negotiation was in order. To his amusement, out of the corner of his eye he saw the omega subtly slump down and suck himself in, making himself look more pathetic and worthless. Good boy.

“True enough,” John told the sheriff. “Technically, though, they don't need to know the boy escaped. Hellfire's dangerous, you know. Not to mention, technically, I can still unbox the demon breach and go on my merry way.”

Dead silence at that, as John expected. He kept his face neutral, nonthreatening. The sheriff eyed him a couple of seconds, and the begrimed boy. Then he swiveled over in the direction of one of the deputies running back with a large dog. “Hudson! Take this gentleman and the omega over to Ed Larssen's for tattooing and travel papers. I don't care if you have to wake him up. Tell him I give authorization.” The sheriff jerked his head down the road, and the boy stood up, still keeping his eyes glued to the ground. “Now that you have compensation, I expect we won't have a need for you in this town anymore.”

“No, sir,” John said. “Your little town should be right as rain. My son's currently over at the inn being watched by your preacher's daughter, but we'll be out by dawn.”

The two men nodded curtly but politely to each other, and John followed the deputy down the street. He didn't have to glance back to know the boy was following him close behind.

* * * * *

An hour later the two of them were in John's car, the back of the omega's neck bandaged for yet another tattoo. The Willoughby insignia now had two small triangles next to it to indicate a change in ownership, and the boy sported the Winchester family symbol below that. Which, unbeknownst to a lot of people, doubled as an anti-demon ward. Now no matter where the boy went, no matter if John sold him off or not, he'd not need fear possession by demons again.

Truthfully, John had only recently considered acquiring an omega to take care of his eight-year-old son Sam. After Mary was killed, naturally it was a common suggestion. Even in the plains where they had lived, where omegas weren't nearly the autocratic industry as in the east, there were still enough slaves around to make it an obvious choice. But in his grief, John loathed the idea. Some whimpering prostitute was supposed to replace _Mary?_ But then the sitter fees piled up, and week after week he had to leave Sam alone with strangers – strangers who, for the most part, had no idea what to do if the demon that killed Mary should appear again, unconsciously channeled by his dangerous son. The idea of a dirt-cheap permanent caretaker, one John could take with him and train himself to look out for demon sign, had grown more appealing by the day.

“What's your name, kid?” John asked as they approached the inn.

The boy looked at him with wide frightened eyes, but only shook his head and gestured to his mouth. John decided some deprogramming was in order, right here, right now. He pulled up in front of the large, dark house for town visitors, but didn't exit the car.

“Listen to me boy, very clearly. If you and me are going to work out, we need to establish some ground rules. And rule number one is, if I ask you a question, I expect an immediate, concise, audible answer. If we are in public in the slave colonies, fine, I don't want you dragged off for indecency, but otherwise, _you will fucking_ _tal_ _k._ Am I clear?”

“Yes, sir,” the boy managed to croak, barely above a whisper. It might very well be the first time he'd spoken in seven years.

“Better. Now what's your name?”

“No name, sir.”

John frowned. “Well, what did your mother call you, before you were sold?”

“No mother, sir.” John then remembered the symbol for _male_ omega in the mother position on his back. Fucking unnatural and creepy, the idea of a man pregnant with a child. Although omegas were hardly men, were they? “I had a pa. He called me chil'eleven.”

“Child eleven? How many godforsaken children did he have?”

“Don't know, sir. Chil'ten was human and got took away, so pa let me nurse til chil'twelve began to talk. Then I got alphas. Sir.”

“That's a warm and charming anecdote, son. Let's see.” He tipped up the boy's smudged face and ran his thumb along his jawline. “You remind me a bit of my wife's mother, may her soul rest in peace. And she had a soft spot for downtrodden rats like you. So I'm gonna call you Dean, after Deanna Campbell. Never lose her name, in memory.”

Dean nodded, but didn't add any commentary. After all, John hadn't asked an actual question, had he?

“Good. Let's get inside, I'm still paying through the nose for the sitter. You will take care of my son from now on, save me some money.

The boy obediently followed behind him up to the set of rooms John had rented. Normally John was fine with one room for the him and Sam, but here in the slave colonies they only rented out suites. Another superstition, that the soulless should not sleep with the souled, so tiny slave rooms were always attached. John knew for a fact that omegas had souls – omega hauntings were commonplace, unsurprisingly given how wretched their lives and deaths often were – but there was no use arguing against stubborn belief.

Upstairs the preacher's teenage daughter had fallen asleep with Sam on the small iron daybed in the main room. John woke her and paid her, and sent her on her way. Then he picked Sam up and placed him down on the rough floor mattress in the slave room, bundled him up in a quilt and closed the door.

Dean had sunk to his knees with his back to a wall as soon as they entered the room, head lowered, waiting for further instructions. John sat down on the main bed and undid his boots, then said, “Take off your clothes and come up here.”

The boy seemed neither surprised nor frightened by the request. He dropped his rags in a neat pile on the floor and climbed up on the bed, sitting yet again with his legs tucked underneath him. It was apparently his default position, and indeed his knees down onto the thighs were calloused up.

Both of them were exhausted and dirty as hell even under the clothes, and logically John should let the kid go clean himself up, but he was curious about his newly acquired merchandise. And also wound up despite the weariness, for boxing a demon tended to unleash torrential energies. It would be a relief for once not to have to masturbate to release all that tension, but instead give someone a nice hard fuck. _C_ _laiming_ the boy, to put an old-fashioned spin on it.

John took him by the shoulders and tipped him over to one side, so the kid could lie straight back and get his legs out from underneath himself. He ran his rough hands over the boy's skin, starting at the top. Dean's body was floppy and relaxed, but his eyes were wide and hard watching for John's every move. John knew this had to be terrifying for the boy, no matter how much so-called training omegas got, and furthermore a slave probably considered it part of his job to anticipate his owner's every need. But still, those green eyes on him were unnerving.

“Close your eyes,” John said, and they immediately snapped shut. “I've never had a boy omega before, so I just want to see what you've got here, before we get to it.”

His hands traveled south to Dean's bulging belly. John had thought that was just a sign of malnutrition, but his lower stomach seemed hard, not bloated. “You sick, boy?” he asked, as Dean imperceptibly wriggled when John pressed on him right above his small cock.

“No, sir,” Dean whispered.

He spread his legs slightly, whereupon John was distracted by two things. One, the boy had lips covering what, with a little inspection, turned out to be a nice pink slit, right where you would expect it on a girl but minus any sign of a clit. He knew the basic facts of omega anatomy, but it was still a sight to see both a cock and pussy together on the same person. Two, further back, something round and hard was sticking out of the boy's butt. He pulled on it, and a second bead popped out. The boy's breathing sped up.

“What the fuck is that?” John asked.

“T...toy,” Dean stuttered. From the way he said it, maybe his whole body was supposed to be the toy.

“Is that why your old alphas didn't let you eat?”

Dean nodded, then remembered himself. “Yes, sir. Food every three days, sir. Clean that way.”

“Well, I'm gonna need you alert and strong. I didn't take you along just to be sickly. You can throw that out when you get cleaned up.”

“Yes, sir.” He rolled to one side, obviously intending to head for the bathroom, but John firmly grasped an arm to pull him back.

“After,” he said. Since it was in, may as well see what this toy business was all about. The boy immediately lay back in his previous position, eyes closed.

John rubbed his small penis between a few fingers, more curiosity again than intending anything arousing. To his surprise, that was all it took to get the boy hard. An odd smell filled the room, one that all at once brought John's blood up and gave him the incredible urge to ram the boy senseless. He shoved open Dean's legs again and inserted two fingers into him, just to be sure. Slick and inviting, where he swore it hadn't been only a few instants before. Even with his fingers he could feel the beads just a thin wall of tissue away, crowding the boy's channel and making him tighter.

At that moment, John believed. The world was filled with lore about the omega abominations: Their intelligence was barely above the animals, and so they required strict dominance to function and navigate the world. They were oversexed and needed regular fucking to be healthy and thrive. If not spayed, they would go into heat like a damned cat, and abuse their own children to relieve the discomfort. And fixed or not, they induced an insatiable desire in their alpha masters, particularly men. John took all of that with a grain of salt, as he tended to do with raw lore before getting direct experience. But now the evidence was literally in sight.

“On your hands and knees,” John found himself saying. The boy rolled over fluidly, and spread his legs with his ass in the air. Either hole available, if one wasn't currently occupied.

Dean's bare butt reminded John of something he'd planned to do earlier, though, so he didn't immediately pull his pants down, no matter how urgent that now seemed. Instead, John reached back and slapped him hard on the ass, just once but with plenty of force. The boy's breath came whooshing out, but he didn't scream. Not a peep, just hung his head down almost to the mattress.

“That was for lying to me about the demon sign. I know you saw something tonight before the fire. Listen to me, boy, before I get distracted here by whatever the fuck scent and get carried away. You will _always_ report anything unusual to me, even the smallest sign. I don't give a shit if that results in you being dragged away to the stocks, you _will_ speak up. House rule number two: Your only job from now on, above everything else including even obeying me, is to keep my son safe. His life is worth ten of yours, but he is dangerous to others and himself. I will teach you what to look for, but I'm telling you right now that if I see the slightest sign that you are not paying attention, or withholding anything from me, I will sell you to the next low-rent brothel I pass, and you can spend the rest of your short existence getting your holes pounded two dozen times a day. Am I clear enough?”

“Yes, sir.” Dean voice was getting stronger, but his body was tense and subtly closed in on himself, unlike his loose-limbed posture before. Probably expecting a full beating, but John thought he'd gotten the point across.

“Relax, kid, lecture's over. Do right by me and Sam, and I'll do right by you.”

Dean didn't respond, but he did push his head back up and arched his back. Offering himself to seal the deal. The smell grew thicker, and with a growl John loosened the fastener on his jeans. It had been too long, maybe that was the problem. In the year since Mary died, John couldn't even bring himself to hire a whore for an hour, and now he had a willing little slave who would bend over every night at the flick of a wrist. It was hard to fathom, but John wasn't about to get romantic about it. The boy was in his bed for release – maybe for both of them – and nothing more.

John didn't even bother to entirely take off his pants, but grasped the boy firmly by the hips and sank in. Dean let out another gasping noise, similar to when he was slapped but lasting longer. His cunt was as wet as if he'd already come, but still so tight and full of friction that John would be surprised if he lasted five minutes. He pulled almost out and slid back in, slow and savoring. Only after a few pumps did he notice that Dean was panting hard and erratically, and had dropped his head back down towards his hands clutching the bedcover. John stopped moving.

“Does this hurt?” he asked.

“No, sir.” His voice was strained and desperate. “I'm sorry, sir, you're bigger than my other alphas, and I...I'm failing to hold back...” His soft voice trailed off, and he hunched himself over again, bracing for more blows.

John was annoyed, but not _that_ annoyed. The boy was expecting far more in the way of nitty-gritty orders than John felt like doling out during sex, but he'd get him trained up to his preferences in no time. “Well, _shit_ son, is that it? Come whenever you need to, I really don't care. Just stop mewling like a wounded animal.”

“Yes, sir. I'm sorry to distract you, s...”

“Hush now, back to quiet mode for the duration.”

The boy followed his orders, and John was grateful. It was so much easier to close his own eyes, and imagine...something other than this. Not Mary exactly, for the very thought of comparing her to fucking a literally filthy omega slave horrified John. But it was easy to just focus on the sensations of this amazing pussy beneath his hands, and not contemplate the miserable lonely circumstances his life had fallen to.

John grasped the boy's thin hips and let himself speed up, not worrying about hurting Dean as he was obviously used to rougher sex than this. And indeed John was dimly aware that Dean was thrusting back against him in perfect rhythm, and able to hold out longer than his initial discomfort would suggest, once given the tiny freedom to stop obsessing over holding back. When the boy did come he still kept silent, all trembling and deep swallows of breath and gushing liquid that made John want to sink into him even deeper. And then the kid _rebounded,_ seeming to know that exactly what John wanted was a renewed no-holds-barred frenzy of fucking. John came less than a minute later, buried balls-deep in that tiny frame and feeling the tension and energy bleed out of him with the flood of pleasure.

He collapsed on his side on the bed, pulling Dean over with him. “My _God_ , kid, if I'd known what a fantastic fuck omegas are, I'd have paid for a whore sooner.” He snaked a hand around the boy's skinny chest, reveling a brief moment in its baby smoothness.

“It doesn't work so good with them. Too many mates. Better to have only one or a couple alphas,” Dean murmured.

John snorted at this unlikely wisdom. “Go get cleaned up,” he said, giving his back a little shove. “Then you can sleep on the floor with Sam. We got to vacate this town in a few hours, and I'll need you alert, especially at the border crossing.”

Dean nodded and moved off. And only after he'd left did John realize that Dean had voluntarily spoken to him without a prompting question or order, as much like a true human as he'd yet heard.


	2. Sam, 1991

As Sam slowly slid into consciousness, he could sense the rough smoky afterburn of a demon on someone in the room with him. _Dad must be back_ , his mind registered. Even without looking, the demon aftereffect had a certain bitter backtaste that irritated the fringes of Sam's mind, familiar and horrifying in its familiarity.

He opened his eyes. And jumped about a mile, because it wasn't Dad sitting across the room. Instead there was a naked kid wrapped in a rough burlap blanket, sitting on his knees like a sentinel keeping watch. He'd drifted off on the job, though, and two seconds after Sam laid eyes on him, he jerked up awake.

“Hey,” said Sam, in sluggish greeting. “Did Dad put me in your room or something?” One of those omega slaves, he decided. They were everywhere in this colony, and yet invisible like ghosts, following their alpha masters around in silence and seamlessly doing their bidding.

The boy stared at him blankly, then shook his head. Sam didn't expect him to talk after that, for he'd never heard _any_ of them talk here in Massachusetts, but then the kid did croak out some words barely above a whisper. “Your pa took me as payment.”

“Really?”

The boy tilted to one side and dropped the blanket over his shoulder. Beneath a bunch of other tattoos that only slaves carried there was a taped bandage, and when he lifted it up Sam could see the Winchester pentagram sigil over inflamed skin. The same symbol that occupied his own right shoulder blade, and John's too.

“Wow, I guess you're one of us now,” Sam said. But the boy shook his vigorously at that, and gestured at the red omega symbol high up on the back of his neck, and a smaller version of it in the place where the father symbol should go. His own family, only it wasn't really a family in Sam's mind. More like an animal brand, without any promise of love or affiliation or support.

“Okay,” said Sam. “I get it.” Though he didn’t, really. Accepting a slave was more than a little weird, for while Dad had been known to barter for his services, it was usually more for immediately useful things like food or fuel or vital information. Not a live person that was going to need to be lugged around and fed like Sam hims… oh. “Dad got tired of paying for babysitters, didn't he?”

The boy didn't directly respond to that one, only raising an eyebrow as if to say, _you said it, not me_.

“So, does this mean you have to do everything I say?” Sam asked. “Like if I ordered you to hop on one foot and shoot boogers out your nose, you'd have to do it?”

Narrowed eyes at that one, and then slowly and deliberately the kid pointed at the door where Dad was sleeping, and only then at Sam. The message was pretty clear: Dad's orders came first. And Dad probably demanded that Sam be wrapped in puffy cotton and treated like a fragile piece of crystal on pain of death, so it was safe to say the kid probably thought he had standing orders to ignore anything Sam said. Which was fine with Sam, actually, because treating an older kid like a llama or dog was just too creepy.

“What's your name? I'm Sam. Which, uh, you probably already know.”

The boy couldn't gesture his way out of that one, so he spoke up again. “Your pa called me Dean, after your gramma Deanna.”

“He _did?_ _”_ Weirder and weirder, for Dad hardly ever talked about Mom's family. Most of what Sam knew came from cousins Mark and Gwen, and then only a little. And what he remembered from Mom, of course. “Did he say anything about her?”

“I have her eyes.”

Just then the door opened, and John stormed in to give them a once-over and tossed Sam his overnight bag. “Get up, boys. Gotta get out of this town before the sheriff decides he’s gotten a raw deal.” He frowned at Dean, huddled in a blanket and nothing else. “Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?”

“They smell like demon, sir, and no time to wash. Your son was agitated.”

Sam glanced away, realizing he’d been sleeptalking again. John let it slide without so much as an eye-flicker at Sam. “Well, put it back on anyway. I don’t need you sitting around showing off your perversions to my eight-year-old, you got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sam wasn’t sure what “perversions” Dad was talking about. From what little he saw, Dean looked like an ordinary boy. Maybe because he was an omega, it was spiritual? Sam was vaguely aware there was a Biblical injunction that made the omegas slaves, although he didn’t know that particular passage. But that didn’t make any sense either, because Dad would never let anyone who was mentally weak watch him for any length of time. Sam would have to look it up in a book, he decided, to find out what made the omegas different. A lot of libraries frowned at precocious kids wandering through the adult section, but Sam already had his ways.

As Sam reached for his duffel bag, Dean wrapped the blanket under his arms to cover himself better, and jumped up towards Sam. For a second he thought the kid was helping himself to Sam’s extra clothes, but then he realized Dean intended to help _him_ get his clothes on. But this only caused John to glower even harder. “No. Do _not_ help dress Sam like he’s a goddamn toddler. I don’t want him to grow up so feeble he can’t lift his own fork to his mouth. You’ll have chores, but they won’t involve basics like dressing.” He turned to Sam and shook his head. “This is why we don’t live in the slave colonies, son. Makes men weak, to have people constantly waiting on you hand and foot.”

 _Then why_ _’d you buy a slave then?_ Sam thought, but he knew better than to say it out loud. Instead he handed over an extra long-sleeve base layer that was reasonably clean. “Here. For under your shirt. It’s getting cold outside. Sorry I don’t have another coat with me.”

Dean hesitated, and flicked his eyes over to John for permission. Dad was already getting that soon-to-be explosive look of impatience and annoyance, so Dean hurried to grab the shirt with a tight nod of appreciation. He had to learn all the rules of a new family, Sam thought, but somehow the omegas were supposed to figure it out without talking or asking questions? Maybe he could help Dean when they were alone, when they got wherever Dad decided to go this time. Which, incidentally, was a good question.

“Are we going back to Ohio, Dad?” Sam asked. They’d just come from one of the Campbell cabins the day before yesterday, and Sam didn’t think Dad had even officially taken him out of school. It was probably their most common destination, nice and centrally located between jobs on the coast and the plains. Also Sam’s favorite of the many places they’d stayed, in the year since what Sam still thought of as his real home burned down. Since the fire that killed Mom.

John looked between them with a lengthy pause. “Yeah, Ohio for a few days,” he finally said. “There’s maybe some work on the answering service, but I need to make arrangements first, and this town is no longer welcoming.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Sam could tell Dean was surprised. Maybe he didn’t know they were leaving town? Well, he would learn quick, the Winchesters were _always_ leaving town.

“Are we going to make it by sunset?” Sam asked, stuffing his few scattered possessions in the main room back into his bag. Sabbath Eve was tonight, and while Sam knew Dad was in many ways an utterly impious man, they still had a public reputation to maintain. Besides, a lot of towns closed off the roads, although that was more in York than Ohio.

“It’s six in the morning, Sam, yes we can make it. Stop dawdling and get in the damn car.”

They piled into Dad’s huge old vehicle a minute later, and it was weird for Sam to share the backseat with someone else. Normally he just dumped his bag on the other side and used it as a pillow, but with two of them it was rapidly crowding up.

Even at that early hour, just as the sun was peeking up, there were people milling about the village. There was always an extra flurry of activity in preparation the Sabbath. A few of the people visible were free workers, but mostly they were slaves carrying out tasks like making deliveries or scrubbing the village shiny. As they rolled out of town, Sam noticed that each and every omega turned to watch Dean in the car. He made a small motion in the window every time they passed one, like two fingers flicking off the thumb. And in return, each omega swiftly pointed at the sky before going about their business. None of the occasional alphas accompanying them seemed to notice.

Sam unbuckled his seat belt and slid over to look out the window with Dean. “What are you saying to them?” he whispered, fascinated.

Dean’s eyes widened in horror. “Not _saying_ anything. We don’t talk.”

“Okay, fine, what are you telling them? Is that some kind of language?”

“Telling goodbye, and going to half-slave colony.” Sam had never heard anyone refer to Ohio as _half-slave,_ but he supposed it did fit. They called the coast the slave colonies, but there was slavery in the rest of the Confederation too, it just wasn’t as common. Dean wasn’t going to be magically freed the moment they crossed the York-Ohio border.

Dean did it again, at an agricultural worker in ragged white linen burdened down with tools walking along the road. This slave noticed Sam in the window, and modified the return gesture to a barely distinguishable finger twitch.

“What are they telling you back? It’s not the same signal.”

Dean paused, long enough that Sam thought he was going to ignore the question. But then he responded, “Wishing me to go up,” with his voice barely above a breath.

“Up?” Sam whispered back, alarmed. “You don’t mean… heaven, right?”

Dean shook his head. “Not heaven or dying. More like, wishing good luck. A better future.”

“Oh. Well, I hope so too.” And he copied the gesture as best he could, pointing up at the sky. Dean smiled a little, like he was pleased, but then gently took Sam’s hand and pushed it down to his lap.

“Not for you. Alphas have real words.”

“I’m…I’m not an alpha, I’m a kid.”

“You’re a kid alpha.”

Sam didn’t know what to say to that, so he slid back over to his side of the vehicle. It wasn’t like he’d opted to be an alpha, that was all on Dad. But then again, Dean hadn’t chosen to be born where and what he was either. Sam rummaged through his bag and pulled out a couple of books from the Athens town library and proffered one to his companion. “Here. It’s an all-day trip, and we’ll barely have time to stop for food.”

Dean glanced down at the book, and then recoiled back like he was physically repulsed. He shook his head again, vehemently, to Sam’s complete confusion. “Only alphas have real words,” Dean repeated. He carefully pushed on Sam’s arm to get the book back to his side of the car, without touching it.

Sam didn’t get it, and then suddenly he did. “You’re not allowed to _read?_ _”_ he said. It was unfathomable, not being able to read. Sam couldn’t even remember back that far, and indeed Mom used to joke that he’d practically come out of the womb with a book in his hand. What on earth had Dean spent long boring days doing if he couldn’t read and couldn’t talk?

“Dad, shouldn’t Dean go to school? Dad!”

In the front seat, John shifted his attention from the road to the youngsters in the rear-view mirror. “What? No. The public doesn’t pay for slaves to be book educated, son, and I’m sure as hell not shelling out for it either. Practical skills are all they need to know.” At Sam’s crestfallen look, though, he softened his stance. “But if you want to teach him in your free time, that might come in handy someday, assuming his mind’s capable. Don’t be obvious about it here in the slave colonies, though, seeing how it’s sawed-off illegal.”

Sam grinned at Dean in triumph, but again his excitement was short-lived. Dean’s gaze was downcast, the exact shade of submission Sam had seen countless times whenever they ventured over the border. He would obey, but Sam sensed he didn’t _want_ to obey. He was terrified at the prospect, although what punishment he could fear from printed letters on a page Sam couldn’t begin to imagine. The state of affairs solidified in Sam’s mind: if he was going to be forced to be an alpha brother of sorts, he’d be a different sort of alpha, one that brought good knowledge to everybody and not just fetching or cleaning or whatever else people were calling “practical.”

Right now, though, Dean obviously didn’t want a boring lesson about the alphabet. It was probably enough to learn to talk for the first day. “Do you just want to hear the story, for now?” he asked, reasoning that if Dean couldn’t read, he’d probably not been exposed to much storytelling.

Dean looked back up at him, interested. “It has a story?”

“Well, sure, that’s mostly what kids read outside of school. Unless you want to know about science or history or something, it’s usually a fable. This one’s about this girl, you see, who falls into the fairy realm with her pet jaguarundi and finds out she has magical powers. So she has to learn how to control them while at the same time avoiding glamour and spells and whatever, and figure a way out. And her cat can talk in fairyland and turns into this sarcastic sidekick, like, protector. Parts of it are real funny.”

Dean tipped his head, as if to say _go on_ , but he didn’t crack a smile or show any sort of enthusiasm. Sam shrugged at the non-response. “You want me to read it to you? Or, you know, you could go back to staring out the window.”

“Both,” Dean said, relaxing against the leather seat and leaning into the corner. “You tell story, I look. Long time since I ever left town.”

“Yeah. Okay. Although if you stay with us, you’ll get to see more boring towns than you can shake a stick at.”

“Only look boring from the outside,” Dean muttered at the window.

But then he settled back into silence, and Sam took his cue to begin to read. He put some voices into it, trying to make it exciting and funny so Dean would be enticed to hear more. And although the other boy didn’t react much to his recitation, and spent long minutes scrutinizing every car and person they passed, Sam could tell he was paying attention and absorbing every word. Starved for stories, it seemed like. Sam couldn’t change much about his life, but that small injustice, that he could rectify.

 

*****

 

They pulled up to the cabin outside of Athens a half-day later at six o’clock, a little after sunset but fortunately there was nobody around to notice. The border crossings and town checkpoints had taken a lot longer than usual with Dean in the car, so that plus a couple of pit stops meant they were late rolling in. Usually the border militia just glanced at their clothes and necks and they graced on through, but with an omega in the car, registration paperwork had to be handled, even to just pass through York. To prevent fraud, they said, both from theft and freeborn malgooders helping runaways. The malgooders had long ago figured out how to tattoo on an illegal family receipt, so improved security was necessary. It was recommended to John that he get the omega a more permanent passport declaring ownership, and register officially in all the colonies they commonly traveled through so Dean would be in the thick ownership binder at the border stations. John grumbled at the chaining bureaucracy and how it limited _his_ God-given right to unrestricted intercolony transport and commerce, but the guards to a one told him that if he didn’t like protecting property rights, he could dispose of his burdensome possession at the local market right over there.

Dean didn’t utter a word through any of it, and John didn’t prompt him to. As they approached each official encounter Dean had reached over and rested a hand on Sam’s shoulder to halt the storytelling, so it wouldn’t look like he was reading to a slave, even though of course he was. Unsurprisingly Dean was good at cueing without words, and Sam found himself wondering if he could get Dean to teach him the secret omega gestures. Might come in handy, to be able to communicate something without talking out loud. Dad had made him memorize some military signals, but of course many folks already recognized those.

Once at the cabin nestled against the Ohio woods, Sam saw Dean’s behavior subtly shift to an anxious edge. Like he was waiting for instructions on what to do: violate the Sabbath and cook? Unpack the car? Serve them? Leave their presence and hide his face on the holy night, as some Conformists preferred? John fiddled with the lock in the dark doorway, and his first order of business was to demand Dean to get a fire going, “preferably demon-free.” So that probably answered Dean’s unspoken question on their observance levels. If he was surprised that a known spirit hunter would violate the Sabbath, he didn’t point it out. He just ran to gather wood, like he was relieved to have a concrete task to focus on.

John had enough foresight that afternoon to stop for food around three, before all the shops shuttered til Sunday. He splurged on some Sabbath picnic packs conveniently sold for strangers and travelers, filled with chicken and pre-steamed vegetables and thumbful packets of wine for dinner, and a cold compartment with oat cereal for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch. Everything you need for a day without cooking, in other words, for those without time to prepare. The cabin had a main eating table out in the common room, but it was still covered with the refuse of John’s research from their previous visit. So Dean dug up a white table cover and carefully laid out two of the dinners on the cabin’s small kitchen table, positioning the customary seven items in three neat rows for each place setting. A longburner candle flickered in between, although by rights it should have been lit before sunset.

But when John came in to inspect Dean’s handiwork, he frowned at the ritual arrangement. “Sam!” he called out, and Sam jerked his head up out of the book at the counter. “Why didn’t you correct him? You know this isn’t the way we set the seven.” He sank down in one of the chairs, and with a curt gesture bade both of them over for a impromptu lesson. “This here is the Traditionalist method, so I’m not surprised it’s all you know, boy. Salt, bread and wine in a row, meat above, non-meat below. If we happen to be on the coast at someone’s home, it’s fine, don’t be rude and argue it out as a guest, but it’s not the way I prefer. Set it correctly, Sam.”

Sam rearranged the items so that the bread, wine and salt were clustered in a little triangle in the middle, while the other four dishes formed a more distant square around them. “And we need another candle, one for each person, instead of one per family,” he said quietly.

“Good. Have you seen any other arrangement in our travels?”

“Gwen does it different. Like, everybody together around the table makes two circles, all the ritual stuff outside, the meal proper inside. And you move the salt and the rest to the inside with each blessing.”

“Gwen’s daddy was a Schemist, so that’s right. Truthfully the circle makes the most sense, ‘cause magically it’s a more primal unbreakable form. But both the Winchesters and the Campbells used triangle-square, so good enough for granddaddy, good enough for me and Sam.”

“What about Dean?” Sam asked uncertainly, pointing at the two meals laid out. “Shouldn’t he eat too?”

Even to Sam, it was weird to think of having three permanently at the table. A little too much like the homey family-feeling Mom used to create. He guessed Dad was considering the same thing based on the uncomfortable expression on his face.

“The way I was raised,” John started slowly, “omegas and animals weren’t seen at the Sabbath table of ordinary humans, not even for serving, either night or day. Separation is part of what sets aside the Sabbath from the rest of the week. Although we never had one, so it wasn’t a common dilemma.”

“But Dean’s a human, why should he be separated?” Sam persisted. “Plus isn’t three a more auspicious number than two?”

“The Bible says they’re a different kind of human, one with the potential for unhealthy influence over other men. So a certain amount of distance is wise. You can’t marry an omega, you can’t keep a child if the misfortune happens to be born to you, and you don’t welcome them into the family even if they’re long-standing servants. They’re not meant to be equal to us, son.”

Sam kept quiet after this speech, for literally all he could think of to say would earn him a smack upside the head. Like: _Why is our family sigil on his back if he_ _’s not part of our family?_ Or: _It_ _’s stupid to think that some people are human and not-human at the same time, no matter what the Bible says._ Or, again: _If separation is so important, why_ _’d you take one to live with us, then?_

Throughout this exchange, Dean stood speechless a few paces away, watching without letting on he was watching with chin practically on his chest. He’d have sunk to the floor on his knees if he thought that’d be approved, which only increased Sam’s discomfort. He wasn’t asking for a Mom-replacement here, or a heretical rewriting of the Bible. He just wanted a little human decency.

Finally, Sam formulated a plea. When in doubt, there’s always whining to fall back on. “Please, Dad? It’s just dinner, and its only the three of us. We already broke the Sabbath getting here and lighting the fire and everything. He’s gotta eat too, does it have to be hiding out in the kitchen, like we’re ashamed to have him?”

 _That_ did it, as Sam suspected it would. Dad was always one to stand up for self-pride, and the pride of the Winchester clan. John gave a relenting sigh and motioned for Dean to bring over the third meal. “Set everything out so the three outer squares form a triangle in the middle. And you don’t say anything during the blessings, understand? Actually, don’t you talk through the whole meal, ‘cause this is family time.”

“Yes, sir,” Dean said as softly as he could, and nodded at the same time. It was the last thing Dean spoke for hours. His eyes met with Sam’s for an instant as he turned to reset the table, and this time Sam couldn’t tell at all what he was thinking. No gratitude, no fear, just the blank expression of one accustomed to hiding all hints of what was under the surface. Worse than an animal, Sam thought, because even pets were allowed to show distress and enjoyment and pain.

“God, who knew there was a budding philosophical malgooder in our midst? Think this calls for a drink.” John said. He got up and retrieved a bottle of real wine from a cabinet along with three small blessing glasses, and replaced the tiny picnic packets at their positions on the table. Even the kids got some, although only a little, and later Sam noticed Dean never touched his glass, except to clear it from the table.

Sam vowed to find out what Dean really wanted -- from him, from his family -- when they were finally alone. Dean would have to tell him if directly asked. Wouldn’t he?

 

*****

 

After dinner turned out not be the time, however, as Dad not only had Dean clear the table and hand wash the dishes, but wipe down the entirety of the dusty cabin’s kitchen as well. And truthfully Sam was a little sleepy from his half-glass of wine, so he decided to try and talk to Dean the next day, on the Sabbath proper, when there wasn’t much to do but lounge around or go for walks anyways. Technically running through the woods and over by the river was a Sabbath violation, but in Ohio at least people weren’t real strict about kids wandering around, and they were practically outside of town already. Sam didn’t know omegas were allowed to do, what with the Conformist don’t-hear-don’t-see rule, but he hardly ever ran into anyone else in the land around the cabin anyways.

So after the dishes were put away and Dean set to work, John settled down at the main table with a pile of newspapers he’d accumulated on the trip back, and Sam curled up in his favorite comfy chair the same room surrounded by books. The common room of the cabin, which reached all the way up to lofts on the second floor, functioned as both a library and a meeting space. Technically his mother’s cousin Mark held the deed on the cabin, but it was one of those itinerant hunter locations where an entire group of people had the unofficial rights to stay, provided they left it as they found it. Mark had given John his own key after Mary died, telling him that Samuel’s grandson and namesake should be brought up with a proper hunter education. And indeed the cabin was chock full of old books of a mystical or magical nature, of which Sam was allowed to peruse everything at his height or below.

The one Sam grabbed tonight was an old thick volume out of _The Encyclopedia of Thaumaturgy_ , published all the way back in 1881 and which took up a whole bottom shelf along one wall. The title sounded obscure, but Sam had found it actually gave rather detailed overviews on practically anything magic-related, including good history articles, albeit over a century dated. So he decided to look up “omega” and see what it said. What he found to his astonishment was that the section for omegas rambled on for a good ten pages. It was like looking up “demon” or “ghost,” subjects with vast interconnected and often contradictory lore. Maybe Sam had misjudged the topic, for it seemed to be one held in universal importance.

 

 _ **OMEGA**_ _ **—**_ _c.f._ _ **hermaephroditis, intersexual, adamu, androgyne, cambion, abomination**_ _(_ toevi‘ _Y_ _ahaz. 3:23-25, Lev. 21:10, Azar. 4:1-7; see subheading_ _ **— Bible**_ _)._ _See also_ _ **getheni, hijra, mehuwahine, muxe, Ninmaites, Ooloi, phetisam, tritiya, tumtum, Two-Spirit**_ _for premodern cultural traditions._

_The omega, individuals born or acquired in childhood of the genitalia of both sexes, occupies a focal point for magical divination and sexual enchantment throughout Europe, Northern Africa, and both New World continents. Hundreds of variations are known, but by far the most common form today are the_ _“Gaelic” male complete hermaphrodite, born with both external male anatomy and a thin membranus covering a vaginal opening and associated internal female reproductive system, complete with the capacity for pregnancy; and his sister, a masculinized sterile female with an extraordinarily enlarged clitoris. The sport which gave rise to the modern omega is believed to have originated in Ireland in the 15th century A.Y., but the trait was rapidly spread through the then-rarefied slave trade due to high fertility of the male form, despite unusual rates of miscarriage compared with normal human females. Externally unambiguous human carriers of the trait cast out by the slave breeders have likely spread it deep within the European and Northern African population… Crosses between two “Gaelic”-trait males can now be expected to reliably produce two-thirds omega males and one-third omega females, and no ordinary humans. However, difficulty with insemination limits cross-omega fertilization in all but early pregnancies, so interbreeding with carriers is now the norm in… cross-breeding between male omegas and ordinary females is technically possible but social prohibitions limit…_

 

Sam was drifting off trying to trudge through the dense article. He could read several years above grade level, but the passage still contained many unfamiliar words and long sentences to boot. That combined with the wine made the reading feel like a blanket of fuzziness was bearing down on his brain. The bottom line that did sink in, though, was that the omegas had both boy and girl parts. What he still didn’t understand is why anyone would care. Sam skipped ahead of the biology section down to the magic part, before sleepiness completely overtook him.

 

_In legend, the male omega has extraordinary powers of sexual seduction, even at the tenderest of ages. Like his ethereal counterpart, the succubi, every known culture notes the effect of the omega on ordinary men at full reproductive prowess. The influence first provokes a general systemic arousal, then affiliative bonding and the warping of spirit or will after prolonged exposure. Some describe the effects of mating with an omega as addictive in nature, although physical withdrawal has not been noted. It is unclear whether this influence has a biological or spiritual basis, but the dominant belief of the Yehoshuans, Rabbanites and even the Ezekialim firmly places the root of the problem on the omega soul. The strictest Yehoshuan sects hold that omegas do not actually have a soul at all (viz. Yahaz. 3:23), but elsewhere this is largely believed to be a superstitious misreading of the passage, and factually inconsistent with the many documented omega hauntings, demon summonings and channeling, divination, prophesying, astral projections, and on the part of the females, acts of miraculous healing. None of these activities would have a known mechanism of magical action if omegas were literally soulless. Indeed, divination abilities are commonly sought out among omega slaves and tolerated within breeding communities for the supplemental tourist income. But most scholars have concluded what truly differentiates the omegas is their malformed soul, an unfortunate and perhaps monstrous amalgam of the Universe_ _’s perfected female and male …_

 

Sam fell asleep with his legs tucked under himself in the warm, soft chair.

His mind flipped to dreaming almost immediately, as it tended to do. No nightmare flew in right away, but he was still an open door to the spirit world. Sometimes Mom seemed to whisper comforts to him; less often it was one of grandparents or other ancestors, all dead before he was ever born. If Dad was working a case near a ghost they too would try to tunnel through Sam’s dreams, although with good warding earthbound spirits were almost never successful. But he could still taste them just beyond the borders, malingering and corrupting themselves with their unnatural attachment to the human world instead of moving on.

At the cabin none of that was likely to happen, as there were hidden wards and charms all throughout the structure that halted even the most benevolent love sent from the other side. But the mares still galloped through sometimes. The work of demons, endlessly preying on fools and the weak-minded to punch through, at the time that every human was most exposed. Sam most of all, for the demonfire and hellspawn that came through a year ago had ripped some injury in his young unprotected mind, although Dad worked hard to try and repair it. When the mares came the demons could recognize his weak point, and accrued below the surface, endlessly pressing and whimpering and _scratching_ at the wound.

Sam rarely woke up on his own until dawn broke. His greatest vulnerability.

Tonight the dreams weren’t demon-infested nightmares proper, but filled with eerie ghost-figures in white. He saw visions of the omegas, living and dead, floating through the dreamscape with utterly alien purpose, terrified and terrorizing outward with a ferocity for reasons beyond the Sam’s grasp. He was immersed in an ocean of grief borne of separation, little ones ripped from their parents and souls cleaved in two, and chopped again and again until nothing was left but fermenting slivers of rage. The figures turned inward on him, not with fire but confusion and cold fury to batter themselves against the alpha, alpha, _alpha_ _…_

Sam snapped awake screaming, lucky tonight by a cool soothing hand on his head, stroking his hair and silently giving him anchor to consciousness. In confusion he opened his eyes, expecting to see Dad. Who was indeed there, but Dean was the one petting his hair and stroking his face to calmly bring him back. Sam didn’t understand why Dean was standing there with his shirt off, or why Dad was right behind him with his huge hand slowly stroking the back of Dean’s neck.

“You forgot to say your prayers before bed, and meditate your mind,” John said dryly. He seemed more distracted than angry, though, so Sam just admitted it, nodding in agreement. “Go upstairs and go to sleep proper, Sam. You’ll forget your dreams.”

Sam slid the heavy book off his chest and tried to drag his leaden body off the chair. As he got up, Dean leaned over to murmur something in his ear.

“It’s not your fault,” he whispered, to Sam alone. And in all his years Sam could never agree, no matter what “it” Dean was referring to, but it was a blessing to hear the words anyway.

  


 

 


	3. Dean, 1991 & 1984

_1991_

A week after getting sold, Dean still had trouble anticipating his new owner and mate. His son was a delight, reminding Dean of some of his distant friends from his birth camp, only infinitely more book smart and full of new stories that Sam himself didn’t yet fully perceive the meaning of. He hadn’t an innocent child in his care since Pa, and it was a massive relief after the now-deceased Willoughbys, who having grown up with omega slaves weren’t nearly so innocent as they should’ve been. Even though Sam’s mind flirted with the demon realm just like Missy, he obviously meant no malice by it. Once Dean thought that if Sam’d been born an omega he’d likely be sent for diviner training, but then he squelched that heretical thought quick. Of course Sam wasn’t punished as an omega, why would he wish that on somebody?

But John was hard to pin down, and that small fact gave Dean an ache in his stomach. He should know by now, after a week, how to predict his mate. But aside from the nightly sex after Sam was asleep, which John seemed to enjoy even though he shoved Dean out of bed the minute he was through, John was not predictable. He wanted a caretaker for his son, but too much affection and he accused Dean of smothering or over-mothering. He wanted perfect obedience from his slave, which was only proper, but he also often seemed to want Dean to be his student, and was intent on teaching him the most inappropriate skills imaginable. Once this week, for instance, he’d locked Dean in handcuffs to some ancient bars in the basement of the woods house. Dean slumped down into passivity, as he assumed he was either being real or play punished, there not being much difference between the two tests from his perspective. John had simply shook his face to get his attention, and before Dean’s eyes used a paperclip to unlock another pair of cuffs. Then he tossed the clip onto Dean’s chest and ordered him to get himself out by the time Sam came back from school, which was less than an hour.

He got out. Dean would never willingly disobey his mate straight to his face.

Every day, though, John tested Dean in some way, constantly dangling the temptation of escape in front of him like he was an impulsive fiver. Dean knew what happened to runaways in the slave colonies — they killed you before you could complete life’s tests, thus dooming you to be reborn as a omega and start the whole trial over again — but in half-slave country the consequences weren’t so clear. Even back in Coral Bay folks knew that a great flight from the half-slave colonies to escape the trials was possible. In the story the journey went: Through many woods towards the waning sun, over the great river that was as wide as a village, through an infinite grassland as tall as trees and filled with wild trampling beasts before it faded to desert, and at last the great flight up into the tallest mountains on the face of God’s earth. In that final ascent, it was told, you could shed your sin and be freed from being an omega in this life, not just the next.

Dean doubted he’d get half a mile before John caught him. That prospect was worse than getting killed, for as punishment John would probably drive him back to the coast and find a vicious monster of a human to buy him. Some alphas were worse than demons, far worse than the Willoughbys’ collective cruel tests. Already John was a vast improvement, almost as if Dean had already been rewarded with a small uplift for his obedience.

The worst disobedience to his mate, the terrible offense that John could never abide, would be to abandon Sam for his own freedom. So John tested him every day, giving Dean the means to run, in order to see if he would take it. Even on the first day, back passing through York, he left Dean with Sam alone in the unlocked car, announcing he’d be gone for ten minutes. He slept in on the day of rest, and never locked Dean’s room, or set it on a timer, or left him chained. He forced him to wear ordinary alpha clothes, even some with collars that covered the tattoo, and bought him proper boots that could probably walk half the earth before they gave out. He left maps laying around that were easily interpretable even without letters, and let Sam show him around the woods surrounding the house unsupervised. On Dean’s third day, when Sam was off at school, John taught him how to drive the car, and let the the keys dangle on an unsecured hook by the door. On Dean’s sixth day he taught him how to start the car using only the wires under the dashboard, so you didn’t even need keys.

Through all of that John watched Dean intently, looking for the slightest wavering of allegiance or hesitation or signs of conniving. Of course Dean _was_ conniving, for it was in the nature of a slave to memorize useful facts for later. But he’d already decided it was his fate not to run and try to ascend within this lifetime, or at least not while Sam was young and vulnerable. Perhaps when he grew up Sam would be able to defend himself; that part of the tale was unclear. Now Sam saw so much of the demon world he couldn’t escape it, but Dean saw just enough to protect him. He saw the same way John saw, less by talent and more by observation, which made his mate an even more excellent teacher. The diviners’ foretelling had been right as usual: his route to ascension wouldn’t be through any physical path, but from giving over his life for the exposed loved one, for as long as necessary. Only then could Dean be reborn, and start a new story.

 

_1984_

It was over seven years prior that Dean had been officially stamped an omega and subjected to his first real test. Of course it had been known long before that; the signs for the thin membrane covering the girl opening were present at birth for those who knew what to look for, and everyone at the Coral Bay breeder barracks treated him normally as such. But it wasn’t until the signs fully opened that it got recorded in the alphas books in letters and you could be sold, so Dean stayed with his Pa until he was five and one half years old. His name wasn’t yet Dean, of course. In the books it was 54-161671-11, according to Auntie, with ‘54’ the letters for Coral Bay, ‘161671’ meaning Pa’s letters, and ‘11’ for the eleventh live baby. If he had made grade A and let be a slave breeder he’d have gotten his own permanent letters, like 54-172somethingsomethingsomething, whatever number of pas they were up to by that year. But that turned out not to be the end result of Dean’s story.

Pa called him Child Eleven on the rare occasions he spoke, but that wasn’t Dean’s actual everyday name either. Instead he had a sign, like every other omega in camp old or young, one that didn’t always translate into letters so easily. His was sort of a flick of the left pinkie finger with a bit of a downward swirl to it. In words it was a combination of _budding leaves_ and plain old _green,_ done with a little extra flourish that meant _pretty._ John wasn’t the first one to name him based on his eyes. It had been a surprise, for Pa and Auntie’s eyes were both speckled brownish, like wet sand. And even more of a surprise given when he’d been born, to get a sign of spring like that in a dead-winter snow baby. Pa always told him it was a good sign, that Eleven would forever be jumping up and racing ahead to more hopeful times, but Dean never believed that story.

So when Dean was a fiver, it was hot summer. All the kids ran in naked packs like wild beasts, much to the annoyance of their pas, for the factory where all but the biggest pregnant ones worked was hotter than demonfire that time of year no matter the direction of sea breeze, and who wants more sweaty chile’s in that mix? Mostly all the kids old enough to walk spent their days in the rocky bay, where they were allowed to swim so long as they didn’t pass the flag markers out to sea. Past that point it was like running away, and every year the guard towers always did sink a couple of kids who braved out too far, as a warning to the others.

That afternoon Pa got off early, since he and Eleven and Twelve all had health checkups with Auntie. There were plenty of aunties around Coral Bay, who worked and looked just like the pas, only they never had heats in the private houses and never got big with babies. This auntie though, whose sign name was a variation of Calla after the lily, really was Dean’s Aunt: she and Pa were brother and sister, and grew up in Coral Bay without ever having been sold. Very lucky, to have real kin to support and rely on. Auntie Calla was known as a healer, but most of the time when babies weren’t coming she did inspections on both kids and grown ups, looking to make sure little ones opened up healthy, and babies came unharmed. Twelve was a little over three years old, but close enough for inspection together. He was a changeling, born outside as a misfortune to alpha parents and swapped for the real Twelve, who was likely an alpha. No point in slaves raising alphas or alphas raising slaves, it was unfair to both. Ten had been an alpha too, but Pa didn’t get a changeling to nurse in return that time; they just sent him back to the private houses early to have Eleven instead. Misfortune all around.

Auntie smiled at all of them and signed greeting, then reached into her pocket to dangle in front of them a summer treat. Red sweet cherries! Twelve could hardly hold back his words with delight, and clasping a little hand over his mouth to stop himself from speaking. They’d got him almost two years ago spring as a wobbly walker, already mimicking the alpha speech. Another misfortune, for naturally he thought like an alpha and wanted to talk and talk.

Dean shook his head no and lifted him up on the table for inspection, exaggerating his sign so the boy wouldn’t miss it. _Let Auntie look at you first, then sweets. Shhh._

He nodded and got control over himself, although his chubby legs kicked as they dangled off the table. Auntie gave him a bigger grin and popped one of the cherries straight into his mouth as a distraction. Then, without warning, she pulled a shot out of her pocket and stabbed him in the arm with it. Twelve’s mouth clamped shut as he bit off the yell in his throat and chomped on the fruit, much to everyone’s approval.

 _Not much of a test,_ signed Pa. _And he might have choked._

 _I_ _’ve had screaming threes all day, so don’t you complain._ “Measles” _found up at Blackstone, so they bumped down the shot age._ She said “measles” softly but out loud. Dean didn’t know the word, but it must be some ruinous disease to hand out meds to every little one.

Auntie finished examining him in under a minute, with swift controlled movements that fascinated Dean. _All healthy and strong. Get on now, boy, run along until dinner. Your turn, Pretty Leaf._ She tossed Twelve a few more cherries and he scampered out.

 _Is he still an omega?_ Dean asked. Maybe, sometimes, it changed. Didn’t have to ask for himself, of course.

_Usually not wrong on that, especially a changeling. He_ _’s opening up a little right on time, definitely an omega. Show me yours, sweetie. I promise not to make too much of a trial today._

Dean leaned back on the table and spread his legs. As a fiver he submitted to these inspections every month, so there was no hesitation or embarrassment. Auntie spent much more time looking and prodding him over than Twelve, and even getting out a measuring stick to bring results to the alpha recorders of the books. She finally leaned over so he could see her hands and signed, _You_ _’re fully open now. It’s almost time._

 _You sure?_ Pa signed. His face broke some, even though Eleven’s fate was inevitable.

 _Yes._ Then, to Eleven, _I have to take some other numbers now, so you stay relaxed._

 _To tell if I_ _’m Grade A?_ Dean asked.

“Can’t tell that for sure without testing you with an alpha, but I can look at a few things,” Calla said out loud. “Now you need to talk to him more, brother. Make sure he understands the alpha words and can respond without omega sign.”

“I remember. You practical more than me, but will try,” Pa said.

“Practice, and yes you need some.” They both laughed, and Pa’s face lightened its load for an instant. He had a beautiful face, people told him, although Dean thought Calla’s must be just as nice, because she looked like them too. Auntie once said that Pretty Leaf was like a mirror of his Pa, back when he was a fiver. “And you, child, have you been practicing, readying yourself for testing?”

“Yes, I…”

Auntie flicked a finger at his knee. Not enough to really hurt, but enough to alert him that he’d done wrong. _You must learn not to talk now, either their way or our way in front of them. The alphas that run the camp don_ _’t care, but outside even sign is offensive. They will cut your tongue out if you can’t keep quiet, I’ve seen it happen. Just nod your head to a question like that._

He nodded, then tentatively raised a hand.

_Question? Go on._

_I practiced lots with my mouth, but should I practice with my fingers now too? Now that it_ _’s open?_

_Yes. Very gently at first so you don_ _’t rip. Without an alpha man there you won’t be wet, so go very slowly. Auntie Peach Rose gave you the rounded sticks for the other hole? Just like with that, start with the smallest._

Dean nodded again.

“Good,” Calla said. “You can get up now, Eleven. I got to tell your Pa some things and get look at this new baby of his. We’ll see you at supper. Do you understand my words?”

He jerked his head yes and hopped off the table, but Dean had no intention of running out with the other kids. He circled around to the room to the window behind, and peered in while hiding from the side. There was just enough of a crack to see their hands, if he angled it right. Pa was leaning against the table instead of laying on it, and rapidly moving his hands.

_Ah, Calla, tell me you think he_ _’ll be Grade A. I don’t know if I can stand losing another one. I don’t know if I can take this test. Don’t have many left in me, you know._

_What I know is you got another one in your belly right now. You just like this one cause he looks like you._

_See, I told you, pretty enough to be Grade A! He won_ _’t cry out during testing, I know it._

_Maybe. Something unusual in him, I can_ _’t put my finger on it. Sees more than a fiver should. We should take him to the diviners before you get too attached. Even Grade A, they might trade him to another camp._

_At least I_ _’ll have him til he’s ten or twelve that way._

_Already attached! What makes you think this boy_ _’s any special? For serious now._

_Don_ _’t know either. Maybe nothing. Just the nightmare, in my dreams this new baby’s the last. I already got sent to surgery twice, you know what can happen. One more and they’ll stop breeding and sell me to the coal mines. And she’s another alpha, I just know it, so what’s all this aching and agony and blood for?_

Outside, Dean squirmed but didn’t emit a sound. He knew Pa had a difficult birth with Twelve, the now-gone real baby Twelve. He wasn’t turned right, and Dean could still remember the wordless screams from inside the birthing room, inhuman and unomega. You could tell the scar where they cut the baby out still ached Pa a lot by the way he hunched over sometimes, although he never said anything. But Dean never knew there was another one before.

_Hush, don_ _’t be heretical. Obviously to test you. To purify your soul of whatever sin made you an omega so you can ascend. Every child you’ve sent out of this place had it worse, what are you complaining for? You barely know what they do to them out there. That’s a real test, one that only ends in death._

_Then they_ _’ll be reborn to better. But still, tell me I won’t lose this one to them._

_I can_ _’t. Take him to the diviners if you want the burden of his fate, brother. And get yourself up on this demon-burnt table so I can have a look at you._

Outside, Dean slumped down after his neck started to crick from the weird angle. Pa was taking him to the diviners! He’d never been, of course, for too many child slaves were sold out to be trusted with the camp’s adult secrets. You had to be one of the select few left behind to attend any of the secret night meetings on the day of rest. Grade As for breeding, occasional girls like Calla that the alphas found useful, and those with mystical talent that was also declared useful — these were the omegas not sent to surgery to be fixed and not shipped out. The alphas supposedly made all of these decisions, but Dean had seen that the adult omegas somehow influenced it, although how a slave could possibly have such power was the part he couldn’t see. They couldn’t save everyone, but occasionally they saved a few. Pretty Leaf hoped he’d be lucky enough to be one of them.

~~~~

That night, after play and hole practice and supper and the evening storytellers, Pa crawled onto their straw pallet next to Eleven and Twelve, exhausted from his big belly. Pa’d been gone through light’s out, so Eleven had got Twelve to sleep without nursing. He was out like a log, but Dean was too wound up and hot to sleep.

“You awake, chile?” Pa whispered. It was almost too dark to sign, unless you put your hands right in front of the other person’s face. His voice was strange to hear, low and beautiful even when he was hushed.

“Yessir,” he replied, and Pa leaned over and tugged his ear.

“Don’t call me sir. Only alphas, and them you _always_ call sir, if they ask you to talk.”

“Yessir,” Eleven repeated, then giggled into his arm. Pa poked him in the neck to tickle him, which made him laugh more. Too loud, for they got several hushes from nearby pallets in the large room, and Twelve twisted around on the old bedding in his sleep and kicked at both of them. Then he rolled over the top of Eleven in order to nuzzle up to Pa’s chest, who obliged him til the boy drifted off again. Threes didn’t need much nursing but for comfort; he’d be ejected when the new baby arrived.

When Twelve was out again, Pa scooted him over and rearranged so he was the one behind Eleven and they could sign close to each other without disturbing half the room.

 _Am I getting sold to a mate soon?_ Dean asked.

 _If nothing else happens, yes. I_ _’m taking you to the rest meeting on Friday, you understand? Twelve’ll bed with Peeling Birch._ He made the sign for the name two inches from Dean’s eyes, practically brushing his skin. One of Pa’s friends, with two little ones of his own a few pallets over.

Dean didn’t comment on the diviners, for whatever happened was simply his fate, and Pa wouldn’t tell him about it in advance anyway. He couldn’t resist the other thing on his mind, though. “Does it hurt a lot?” he blurted out loud. _The test I mean?_

’ _Fraid it’s a real trial for fivers. Less than birthing, though, for it’s over quick. Grade A or B you get real wet, so it doesn’t hurt as much, and none of my boys have been C’s. Don’t worry, you’ll live._

_Auntie told me most kids from Coral Bay are Grade B anyway._

_Well there_ _’s breeding for you, they know what they’re doing. Stop fussing over it, Pretty Leaf, it’ll only tighten you back up. Half the test is accepting that whatever happens, it’s a part of your story that you can’t change. No matter what else, the alphas will always be there. No omega can change that fate, or should. You remember the tale of the Raven and Starfish?_

_Yes._ Of course he did, Eleven diligently memorized all the stories. They went over them again and again, their shadow version of omega schooling, so the fivers wouldn’t forget their aunties and pas when they were sent into the alpha world.

_Repeat it to me._

There were lots of Raven stories, actually, but only one combined with Starfish that Dean knew. _Once there was a starfish at the bottom of the bay. Under the water the starfish could make out the stars and the moon, so he rose up, up, up towards them. When he reached the surface, the moon was blacked out._ _“Oh moon, why have you forsaken me?” the starfish signed with his five hands. But the moon couldn’t see, because it was the raven that was blocking it. “The moon can’t hear you,” said the raven. “You need to come closer.” So the starfish tried to reach out for the moon, coming up too far, and the raven swallowed him up. “Oh, raven, why have you eaten me?” signed the starfish, but of course the raven couldn’t see. But they were like one being then, so the raven answered anyway, rumbling in its stomach, “It wasn’t time for you to come up. But now you can fly with me.” And the starfish grew all five of its arms out long stretching for the lost moon, joining the inside walls of the raven, and never signed again._

_And which are you, little Leaf, the Raven or the Starfish?_

_Starfish, in this life._

_Good. Sleep now, or at least hold still, cause I need to. Sun comes up too early in the summer, bad for us old bones._

Dean giggled again, and turned around to curl up on his pa’s chest. Pa stroked his back in that comforting way, and Dean closed his eyes.

~~~~~

Three days later it was the eve of the alpha Sabbath, during which animals and omegas could rest too. The sewing factory closed early and didn’t run the next day, and alpha supervision of the camp tended to be light. After supper — often with an extra treat of fruit this time of year — storytelling was always longer and more dramatic this night, with the tellers encouraging the kids to act it out and sign along with them. Then, when the kids were tuckered out and nursed and put to bed, many of the adults stole out to the orchard or the dark beach for the secret ceremonies. The alpha religion forbade omega participation in their public religious rites, because for them anyone that didn’t speak was less than human, but the omegas had their own type of prayers and meditations that no letter bible could match. Dean had never prayed, but he’d been carefully taught about God and God’s punishments. They were legion, for the world in all its dimensions was low and corrupt and disobedient. Not just the omegas, but the demons and ghosts and all the other creatures that preyed on the souls of the weak too, all signs or side effects of God’s wrath.

But as Pa explained as they walked down the path to the old apple grove, there were signs of love too, and forgiveness even for the abominations of the world, and one of those signs was the blessing of the diviners. No one knew why the omegas had unusual numbers of children with the talent, but it was plain fact. Maybe the alphas had them too but didn’t recognize it, for perhaps it took a state of degradation and sin to rip open the soul enough to see the other side. In any case, the diviners were famous even among the alphas for fortune-telling, but their talent was much more than that. They protected the camp from demons and ghosts, and blessed them with fertility and health. The diviners could see the darkness between the stars and the blue under the ocean and the clear white of the air, all the hidden places that touched between the high God and low earth.

They entered the orchard and headed for the long end, where the oldest trees grew. Some had told Eleven that the orchard was as old as the camp itself, and the ancient apples even older. Auntie Calla had scoffed at that and told him the trees were a couple hundred years old at most, which was plenty old for apples but still younger than Coral Bay. The alphas let the slaves tend the orchards and some gardens around it for extra food. Not that they were ill-fed, for starving people grew unhealthy babies, but it got old eating the same thing every day. So it was nice to have crunchy walnuts or dried pears to add to the vitamin-oat mush every morning, or some onions or greens in the bean stew.

The rest service took place under the broadest, most ancient tree of all, a tree so old the kids weren’t even allowed to climb it, no matter how tempting. Let the old tree rest, the adults told them, it’s earned it. Somehow it was still alive and fruiting, so that summer night there were thick leaves and baby green apples through its branches, blocking out the stars. In a ring all around it were the diviners, a few young and a few pregnant, but most of them the oldest members of the camp. About a third were aunties, for divination was not a talent divided by birth sex. In fact a lot of the onlookers were aunties too, which made sense to Dean because they didn’t have little ones to nurse and look out for.

Everyone gathered round the diviners in a thick circle, and then the drummers started up. A low beating at first, then louder and louder by the stomping and then dancing, increasingly fast in circles around the tree. The youngest diviner, an auntie barely at heat-age, took Eleven’s hand and led him to the center of the excitement, right in the middle of the diviners’ feverish dancing-prayers. They were making wide gestures as they circled, which Eleven realized with awe were exaggerated versions of sign, calling power down from the universe to that exact spot. The girl held his hand through it all, but he could see her trembling and swaying, unable to stop the energy pouring through her and the group, out to the praying participants beyond.

And then the diviners began to sing. Wordless and timeless, flowing together like colored clay water swirling into one. Eleven had never heard anything like it. He vaguely knew of singing, but it was so intimately attached to alpha prayers that the practice was utterly forbidden to omegas. Listening to it he understood why, for it was beauty enough to almost believe in heaven or a kind God.

The girl was gasping hard now, with her head snapping and almost tipping over from the jerks. An older man far beyond childbearing years slowed his dancing and broke off from the main group and took both of their hands. In a threesome circle he moved them out of the center, still dancing around to the beat of the drummers, and then beyond the other omegas as well. Calla and Pa were waiting off to the side, with him clutching her hand like they were the children.

The old man let go of their hands. _Tell his story,_ he instructed the girl.

The girl told it very well, Pretty Leaf thought. But it wasn’t a story about Coral Bay. Instead the story was filled with demons and monsters, and also involved alphas, a mate and a brother. Eleven was required to save them both after an arduous trial, and only then would God let his punishment end.

 _So he_ _’s not Grade A?_ Pa asked when she was done, with a look of anguish on his face.

The old man answered: _He is Grade A. He can pass the fiver trial and much more. But letting him stay here would be a selfish act. It would doom him to another omega life, for he will not have fulfilled his assigned task. He must face the demons and the alphas the demons have harmed. When he is tested, we will ensure the alphas see what they need to see to be sent out._

Pa collapsed on the ground clutching Eleven to his chest, and neither he nor Auntie Calla could comfort him. And the diviner’s foretale came to pass. When he was tested two weeks later he didn’t utter a squeak, but the graders marked down “B” anyway and sent him to surgery, which hurt just as much. For when the diviners tell your story it seals, and it always comes true.

 

_1991_

From his position kneeling on the floor, Dean jerked his head up when John walked through the bedroom door. He’d drifted off while remembering Coral Bay, but from long years of practice was able to snap awake and pay attention at an instant’s notice. It was late on Sunday evening, a school day for Sam, and John had left them alone hours ago and only just now returned. Dean had diligently cooked supper and cleaned up, and made sure Sam got into bed properly, complete with the boy reading him another story and all his alpha meditations. Dean taught him a couple more signs, innocuous useful ones like _walk forward_ and _run_ _left_ and _stop._ Once Sam was safely asleep and without sleeptalking, Dean did what he’d done most every night for the past week: Strip down and wait at the foot of the bed for his mate to arrive, however long that took.

John sat down with a weary sigh on the bed and glanced down at him. The look contained neither affection nor annoyance, just a bare acknowledgment of his presence, but Dean didn’t mind. He knew John didn’t consider him his mate — that was for his wife, Sam’s mother, may her soul be uplifted. John had ordered Dean away from the kneeling under other circumstances, as if he didn’t want to admit he had a slave in front of other people and especially Sam, but here in private he’d never told Dean to stop doing it. Like their own personal ritual, one that separated the bedroom and everything outside, but also emphasized the difference between Dean and John’s wife. Dean wouldn’t dream of disrespecting her, or taking her place, or interrupting John’s mourning. He made no claims, and tried to keep the bond as formal and distant as possible.

Nevertheless he could feel the bond chaining them both. Only a single mate, every night, at exactly the age he’d have first gone into heat if they hadn’t done surgery. It was inevitable.

“Sam sleeping quietly?” John asked, unlacing his boots.

“Yes sir, last I saw.” He kept his head down and body balanced upright with his arms behind his back.

“He’s doing better since you got here. You must calm him.”

“If you say so, sir.”

John made a dismissive noise at the platitudes, and signaled Dean to come up on the bed while he peeled off his own clothes. “I’m tired tonight, boy. Drove three hours just for fifteen minutes inspection to confirm a ghost, then drove back. Got to go back on Tuesday and finish the job. So I don’t really feel like doing all the work here, you understand? Climb up top.”

Dean froze, distracted to the point he almost missed the last part of John’s statement. For _six hours_ he’d been out of town? And was leaving again, this very week? Dean could make it further than a half a mile in six hours. A _lot_ further.

Next to him John was studying his face with those eagle-like black eyes. No, a raven. Before Dean could collect his thoughts and speak something benign, John grabbed his chin and pulled Dean’s face towards his own. “Will you be here when I get back on Tuesday? I can see you thinking about it. If you’re going to run, run soon, boy. Don’t let my son get attached and then smash that hope to bits. Because I’ll have you know that if you _ever_ abandon him or leave him vulnerable, I will hunt you, and I will find you. Even if you actually made it to the slave-lovers in California, I will drag your worthless ass three thousand miles back to the coast where your kind belongs. Do you believe that you belong there?”

“Yessir,” Dean breathed.

“Are you going to be here taking care of Sam when I return, or should we skip straight to the part where I dump you back in the land where they’ll happily whip a child to death for disobedience?”

“No sir, I mean, yes, I mean… I’ll be here. I promise,” Dean whispered. His insides were liquid at the way his mate could read his mind. Dean struggled to get control of himself and his wicked thoughts. Really they were idle, because he’d already decided to submit to the foretelling and defend Sam with his life. But it was so very tempting to resist fate, escape from all the pain and struggle and weariness, and try to ascend.

“Good.”

John let him go and Dean abruptly sat back, shaking. He couldn’t understand why this set of warnings was particularly disturbing. John hadn’t laid a hand on him, hardly raised his voice, and hadn’t told him anything he didn’t already know. Dean _knew_ he’d be caught, so why did he even think about it? Why was he failing this simple test to the point of dooming himself to another lifetime of misery? Dean dropped his head for a moment, trying to gather his self-composure enough to concentrate on the task at hand.

John must have sensed his unusual distress, for he cupped his face again, with a gentleness that shocked Dean. Unpredictable, so unpredictable, it was unnerving. At least with the Willoughbys, you knew the beating was coming, because it was _always_ coming. Why wasn’t his mate one thing or another, all the time?

“Take a breath and stop worrying, son. I know you won’t fail me or Sam, despite yourself. I didn’t bring you here to torture you with tasks you can’t fulfill. Now, what are you supposed to be doing right now?”

“Up…up top.”

“That’s right.”

John lay back on his pillows, jumbled in a pile to render him slightly upright, and watched Dean with those dark eyes as he straddled his mate’s hips. Blacker than usual, blown out as Dean ground their members together to get them both aroused. Even before pulling him inside, Dean could feel the bond growing taunt between them like a rope, more intense with each passing day. He closed his eyes and slipped John’s large member inside — the girl hole, as he’d never said anything about the other, although that felt good too — with a long, slow outbreath. It filled and stretched him so perfectly, Dean didn’t understand it. It rubbed him all the way in the back, past the organs and special places near his own cock which were especially pleasurable for omegas. This was the one moment of the day Dean looked forward to over any other, even back with his old alphas. He could be freezing cold, or his back and feet aching from hauling wood or walking dogs in the snow, or extra bruised up from the previous day of Tommy’s whipping, but any of the discomforts he endured on a regular basis were erased for those precious few moments. It hurt so much when he was little, but now that he was close to heat-age his body rollicked at a feather touch and could come on a dime.

“Stop moving,” John said, his voice husky. Dean opened his eyes and tried to hold still, although he hadn’t been aware he was moving much to begin with. Still staring at him, John reached out his huge hands and thumbed both of Dean’s nipples, then rolled them between his fingers in a light pinch. The motion sent a shock of pleasure straight down to Dean’s cock, and he couldn’t help shoving forward, hard, despite John’s orders. The bond tightened, yanking back on John, and Dean felt more than heard him moan and buck back in response, fucking deep into him for a few pulses on the reverberation alone. Only a lifetime of training prevented Dean from crying out.

“This is an enchantment, isn’t it,” John spat when he caught back his breath. “Are you even fucking human? Or are you some new type of devil sent to pollute the human race, even as we think we control you?”

 _I am human!_ Dean thought, unbidden. _We_ _’re not demons. We have human souls._ But the wiser part of his mind supplied what John wanted to hear: “I don’t know, sir.”

John pushed himself up to lean in closer, and cupped the back of Dean’s neck, right over the red tattoo. “I know you don’t. The demon-afflicted never know.”

 _They always know,_ Dean thought. But the lie was accepted, and in the pause Dean grew bolder. He needed to know something for himself, even if it earned him a smack for impertinence. “If you think this is enchantment, you take me back to the coast?” he asked.

“There’s many forms of magic in the world, some good, some bad, some indifferent to human design,” John said. “Can’t tell yet what category you belong to yet, but my gut says you’re at least not evil.”

Not much of an answer. Unpredictable yet again. “If I was a demon, Sam’d know,” Dean said softly.

The raven eyes regarded him a long minute before John snaked the hand on Dean’s neck up and yanked his head backwards by his hair. “You don’t know the first thing about my son or what he knows,” he murmured, and ran his other hand down Dean’s throat. “Do not speak to me about it again.”

“Yes, sir,” Dean whispered. John let go of his hair, but not his neck.

“As for you, it’d be a shame to let such a charmed pussy go to waste. Especially since it mainly seems to be charmed by me. Plus Sam does indeed like you, and your mind is strong under all those whimpering yessirs and nosirs, so I think I’ll keep you for a bit, presuming you don’t do anything stupid like try and run away. But tonight we’re gonna do something a little different. I told you a few days ago you could come whenever you want, but that changes now. I want you to ride me hard, and hold out as long as you can. Got a theory, and I’d like to see the results.”

He stroked his palm down over Dean’s chest and body, back down the hip where he was still sitting with John inside him. Dean trembled under the sensual touch. John had figured it out, as most alphas do sooner or later. They always came for longer when he held back, and the bond in response tightened like a screw. Dean closed his eyes to concentrate. When he began to move, Dean leaned forward to change the angle, to reduce the pressure of that perfect size inside him on the area that would otherwise make him almost instantly come. He could do this for his mate. He could pass this test.

 


	4. John, 1996

John returned home in an exhausted state, as usual. Too _old_ for this shit, ten-hour driving stints and lackadaisical eating habits, but the information extracted from the ghoul had been worth it. Next stop, New Nederland, just as soon as he could plausibly come up with a cover story to enroll Sam for free in the afflicted school. It was close to midnight on a Friday, late enough that John had to zigzag around roadblocks with his lights off half the way back to the cabin. A bad habit to fall into, leaving Sam in the care of a servant all the way through the Sabbath meal. But he knew Sam would be safe despite John’s lazy observance, and that was all that mattered. For years now Dean had been trained to put Sam’s life ahead of his own, to the point that it was reflexive. Internalized, John was certain, not just a facile act for his master. He’d sacrifice himself in a heartbeat, without hesitation or overthought. Most of the time such devotion wasn’t necessary, but John made sure it was always there, lurking, underlining Dean’s every move. Keep Sam strong, don’t mollycoddle him, but above all keep him safe.

That late night John wandered through the kitchen, the quiet informing him that nothing was amiss. Dean had put away most of the food from the Friday meal, but left out small amounts of the seven ritual items, precisely aligned in their correct places. John sank down into one of the rickety wood chairs and swiftly recited each blessing: bread, salt, wine, food that emerges from the earth, food that walks the earth, descendants, every ancestor. Technically Sam’s earlier incantations were enough for the family as he was now old enough to speak ritually, but John’s own lifetime habit compelled him to repeat them for himself. The candles flickered in their metal holders as he spoke, and John was annoyed to note three instead of two. Hard to make Sam understand that an omega wasn’t one of them and never would be, no matter how many years of service he pressed out of the boy. John didn’t even know if Dean believed in God, although he sure as hell believed in the plain fact of demons.

Rituals complete, John decided to skip the effort of getting out food and go upstairs to check on his son. Dean hadn’t reported any incidents of sleeptalking in over six months, a massive relief given Sam’s age. Adolescence was notoriously risky for demon temptation, but Sam was a good boy and intimately knew the danger of taking curiosity about the dark creatures too far. And indeed John found Sam sleeping peacefully, with his head a tousled mess and his feet caddy-corner crooked out of the sheets. The kid was getting too tall for the tiny twin bed in the loft bedroom, which with the slanted ceiling was hardly bigger than a closet. In that space they had crammed Sam’s bed, Dean’s mattress, and a small desk currently covered with a stack of spell books and many scattered bits of parchment. Now that Sam was thirteen John had him on amulet duty, since his handprinting was tight and neat, unlike the shaky chicken scratch John produced from his paw hands. So very much like Mary in yet another respect. Her amulet business had boomed too.

The rough mattress on the floor where Dean would later sleep was bare and empty, of course, although his scent still lingered in the room. It hadn’t yet affected Sam that John was aware, although he wondered if the day was arriving when he’d have to separate the two of them. Or not, if his son could handle it; one thing every slaver he ever spoke with insisted upon was the desirability of spreading a given omega around. The males in particular supposedly got too influential with only one alpha keeping them as a sexual plaything, too confident in their charms, too uppity. That was the cited reason omegas were kept individually as family servants instead of amassing them into gang labor, with a few exceptions such as the mines where worn out slaves were sent to die. How that common knowledge squared with the large breeding colonies John knew were located on the coast he didn’t know, but presumably the breeders had their ways.

John brushed Sam’s shaggy hair out of his face and bent over to plant a kiss on his forehead. Sam twitched and mumbled in his sleep, likely in reaction to the the faint odor of ghoul still lingering on John’s clothes. Whether he would ever have the mental fortitude to become an active hunter still remained to be seen. Sometimes those suffering demon damage grew up to be the strongest of all, and sometimes they mentally crumbled like water breaking down porous rock. So far Sam had shown definite aptitude for spells, talismans, bibliomancy, and general book knowledge, but whether any of that would translate into the strength to face an actual demon or spirit beast was too hard to say. Ellen Harvelle might have some insight, when she arrived tomorrow night after the Sabbath lifted.

He moved from the boys’ room to his own, which was itself a rough space but at least large enough for a decent-sized bed. Dean was as precisely placed in position as the food downstairs. He was stark naked, kneeling on the bed and facing the wall, with both hands clutching the hold bar John had hung up six months ago. The height was such that when the boy tipped his head forward to rest it on his hands, the muscles in his smooth back and shoulders were highlighted and exposed. John involuntarily sucked in a breath as he saw him, which happened most every time. His body tightening up, anticipating release. John often tried to pretend that this peculiar craving was for relaxation and simple sexual relief, and there certainly was something to that argument after spending a grueling week pinpointing and dissipating a ghoul. In the past five years he’d never let on anything to the contrary to the boy, for fear that Dean would try and use the mystical connection to unfair advantage. To his credit, Dean had thus far never been that stupid.

Dean’s head bent up a notch as John entered the room, hovering over his hands although his eyes didn’t budge from the wall in front of him. His scent intensified within a few seconds, and nothing signaled that the cunt was _his_ more than that smell. Normally John was barely aware of people’s scents, apart from the common unalluring ones of ‘family’ and “ovulation’ and the everyday ability to identify people’s born sex, but this omega alone had gotten into his mind somehow, infecting him with unreasonable lust. The whole thing was strange, for John couldn’t say he’d ever been particularly attracted to males, but he preferred the fact that despite his pretty face, Dean more and more resembled a man as he aged, and not something ambiguous in between. Somehow it was less of a perversion, which was an ironic train of thought given that the Bible wasn’t exactly sanguine on male-only relations either.

He’d let this situation happen, of course. His own damned fault.

John kick-dropped his bag in the middle of the room and strewed his own dirty clothes about where he stood, giving in to temptation once again. The boy would pick everything up the next morning and do laundry after nightfall. Once his clothes were off he retrieved the new toy from the bag and tossed it on the bed far enough behind Dean that he couldn’t see what the object was. He climbed up on the bed and pressed behind Dean’s ass, with one hand wandering over the boy’s neck and back tattoos. The skin contact electrified the link between them, and Dean strained back . John’s other hand slid down Dean’s front to cup his balls, which were heavy and — judging from the way Dean squirmed backward into him even more — sensitive and bulging. Touching him reverberated back to John’s own cock, making him equally aching and hard.

“I see you held back,” John said into his ear. “I’ve been gone over a week, kid; I gotta say I’m fucking impressed. Most boys your age can’t hardly make it six hours before they jerk it out.”

“Yessir,” Dean replied, although his tone of voice may as well have sassed, _I_ _’m so not most boys, sir._ He’d have to watch the budding cockiness, but for now John just chuckled.

“Uh-huh. Well, I’ve got a little test for you, see if you can pass.”

He leaned back behind them and picked up the toy, a lumpy mound of glass that vaguely resembled a dildo, with two strangely-aligned ridges along one end. The original owner of the object swore it would reduce any adult male omega to a quivering puddle unable to stand. Really, they’d learned to milk every ounce of enjoyment out of their perversions in the slave colonies. Even a couple of years ago John wouldn’t have dreamed of buying fancy accoutrements for sex, but having a willing adolescent with a drippy cunt waiting at home for him every night did encourage creativity. Plus, he’d won the thing in a card game.

John slid the smooth head in two inches, angled forward towards Dean’s cock, and the boy’s eyes practically rolled out of his head onto the wall. Dean leaned forward to rest his forehead on his hands, panting and flexing his muscles in place to adapt to the urge to come. His body was obscenely well-trained, but still: seventeen years old. Even a slave bred for sex wasn’t a fucking machine.

“Any news while I’ve been gone?” John asked casually, breathing in Dean’s ear. Sometimes it was such a pleasure to watch him struggle with a mundane task while being stimulated. Kept the boy’s concentration up.

“You…you’re friend called for you,” Dean breathed. He squirmed down on the toy with a hard thrust, obviously enjoying the pressure without being pushed too far to the edge. “A lady hunter.”

“Ellen?” John frowned and grabbed Dean by the neck to hold him still. Dean’s eyes flew open and focused as he realized his error. “What’d she want? Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

“Information’s not going anywhere, sir. She arrived in town early and was looking for you. I told her you might not be back til late, and she said she’d walk over here for midday blessings. That’s it.”

“Why didn’t you invite her for supper? She could have shared the meal with Sam.”

“Did, sir. Said she was welcome to stay overnight for the Sabbath. She declined, said she’d come when you were back.”

“I see.” Not the boy’s fault, then; even a hunter as respectable as Ellen Harvelle had their superstitions.

“I should’ve said something different?”

“Not so long as you made it clear Sam was here. I’m surprised she wouldn’t come over for him when he was alone. But the Harvelle’s aren’t much for omegas, so that may have been the problem.”

Dean nodded with a mumbled “’kay,” and once again closed his eyes. “Sam likes talking to other hunters. Asks every sort of question. I’d sleep outside if she wanted me to.”

“I know you would. Anything else to report?”

“Sam won an award in writing that he wants to show you. Also wants to talk again about the field-ball team that…ah…”

He trailed off as John shoved the glass in deeper, enough that it stayed in on its own, and John’s own cocked pulsed in response. He’d need relief himself very soon, for as enjoyable as tormenting Dean’s overresponsive body was, it had the same effect of sticking one’s dick in a mirror bowl. Everything came reflecting back to him.

“I’ll speak to my own son about trivialities like school. No demonsign, then?”

Dean silently shook his head. With his head turned to the side he looked especially fetching, biting his lip to concentrate both on the barely controlled arousal and John’s words. John reached over to the drawer in the side table where Dean was under instructions to leave lube, and spread it on his fingers.

“No unusual prayers? No spells or candles or herbs around the house? No burning parchment? No sleeptalking?” He slid a finger in; a single would do it, for the boy needed remarkably few signals to relax, and indeed less seemed to rev them both up. Another activity John had never thought of a few years ago, and now couldn’t imagine what the early reluctance was about.

“No. Just the amulets.”

“Has he been reading any of the forbidden books?”

“I..I can’t tell, sir. None from the locked case.”

John shoved down his annoyance at that last incomplete answer. What did he expect? Through Sam’s tutelage the boy could make his way through an ordinary newspaper and such —and even that John didn’t want advertised — but Sam was on his fourth ancient language now, as appropriate for a hunter with his linguistic skill. He could have laid his hands on _Sefer Raziel ha-Baal Mot_ for all Dean knew.

“Fine. Just let me know if he gets any books with unusual designs, not from the cabin. Or any that seem off in any way.”

“I always watch,” Dean said stiffly, as if a tad bit prideful in his duties. “Sam’s never been trouble, why would he start … aw… _fuck._ _”_

John clamped a hand over Dean’s dirty mouth, even if he secretly enjoyed it when he slipped. He’d barely breached Dean’s hole but now shoved in hard, enjoying the tight squeeze between the muscle and the bulging glass toy. _Too_ tight in fact; this was the sort of thing that needed to be savored slowly and built up to enjoy stretching Dean in all the right places, but John realized he just wasn’t in the mood for languid sex tonight. Dean was pushing back from the wall into him, rocking his baby-soft back against the length of John’s slick body, a sure sign that the pressure on Dean’s front was too much, and the boy was on the verge of prematurely losing control. John slid his hand down, bypassing Dean’s wet red cock and without warning yanked the glass free. Dean cried out at that, pain or pleasure not obvious, and collapsed forward; John caught him with his huge arm and shoved Dean’s hips back up towards him, onto his cock.

“Stay with me, boy,” he whispered. “You’re not gonna tell me that was too much, are you?”

Dean’s head wagged a back and forth ‘no,’ but his body told a different story: sweating and squirming and panting into John’s palm. The hand he’d kept over Dean’s mouth slid down to clutch him by the chest, and prevent him from wriggling that taut body away. White-hot pleasure spread up from John’s cock to his belly, born of Dean’s immense frustration. John thought about reassuring him that he wouldn’t last long, but the boy already knew, through whatever gray blemished magic bound them together.

“Hard,” was all John managed to grit out in warning before he began to move. Dean would know he meant _finish hard and quick,_ know not to bother responding, know to keep his voice muffled as he fucked back, know the exact instant he was allowed to come. His perfect knowledge of John’s desires was Dean’s most valuable commodity, worth five years’ payment many times over. It was if he was a beautiful instrument tuned and worn down to the exact contours of John’s hand. Treated with just the right touch, Dean would always play.

Afterward, when both of them were coming down from that ecstatic shared orgasm, John pulled Dean off the wall and curled all his limbs around him. He was almost as tall as John now, but still leaned in like a lonely child in need of comfort. The skin contact was an indulgence, but the coddling did no harm. John let him be vulnerable, let him fall asleep or at least relax enough to fake it a few moments, before he himself crashed to exhaustion. Dean would know to be gone by dawn.

* * * *

The next morning John slept in, catching up after days of overcaffeination and the intense concentration necessary to bring a ghoul fully out from the nether world. He’d run out of true leads years ago on the demon that pulled down Mary, and thus had been resorting to testing every ether creature he encountered for allegiance or knowledge of yellow-tinged spirit that had broken through every ward and spell the Winchesters ever knew. That doubled the effort necessary to contain the monsters, though, and made every job that much more of a slog, when John’d rather be home with his son. At least with Dean he could leave Sam in one place, without switching schools or houses constantly like before he’d acquired the servant.

When he woke up, he found the room cold from Dean opening the windows, as was traditionally done at dawn this time of year to disperse foul energies accrued through the night. Outside he could hear the boys talking as Dean washed up the car from many days on the road. John lay in bed and listened, wondering about their strange relationship, emotionally closer than any alpha and his father’s omega should be. Sam seemed perennially unable to treat Dean as anything but an older brother, a completely inappropriate viewpoint that bothered John.

“What about Layla? She asked me to help her with her biology homework. That’s good, right?”

“She the blond? Just ask her, Sam. Worst case someone else already asked her to go, which is more likely every day you wait.”

“That’s not the worst case. Worst case scenario, she laughs in my face and tells the whole school. It could totally happen, Dean.”

“That ain’t going to happen so long as you do her biology homework,” Dean retorted, and they both laughed. His voice — no, his personality — was different when he was alone with Sam, and no one else. John got glimpses of it occasionally; the boy was so much less a simpering omega when it was what his alpha masters wanted, and Sam did indeed want.

“Really, don’t go out with somebody mean,” Dean continued. “Never any point to dealing with mean people. They’ll never change, so best to cut them off before even beginning, if you got a choice.”

“People can always change. Even the Traditionalists believe you can redeem yourself through good works in your life.”

There was a faint huffing noise that John could swear was _fat chance._ Then Dean said, more diplomatically, “Everyone should try. You think this Layla is a nice person?”

“I think so? You should come to school with me sometimes, meet people. Make friends.”

“Not a good idea, Sam. Your school is for alphas. Very few have servants.”

“There are omega schools too. Besides, none of the kids care.”

“ _Free_ omegas, and did you take a poll?”

“Fine, you can still meet me after class. It’s no big deal. You could—” There was a pause, and John could hear Dean dropping a sponge in a bucket. Likely the Sam had switched to the omega sign-pidgin. John had let Dean teach it to his boy, on the theory that it never hurt to know what the people around you were saying, even slaves — or perhaps especially slaves, since they had motivation to say one thing to their masters and another to each other. He didn’t anticipate Sam would use it as a private code with _his_ servant.

“Stop worrying, Sam,” he heard Dean say. “You gotta be brave without me and just try. That’s how alphas learn to…”

He cut off, and John assumed they went back to more sign. But then he heard Sam say, “Learn to what?” Another long pause, then, “Oh, hi, Miss Ellen. Good Sabbath.”

“Sam Winchester, look how tall you’re getting. Your daddy finally stumble home last night?”

“I think so, ma’am. We’re not ready for lunch, but you can…”

John leapt out of bed and threw some clothes on while his son and Ellen exchanged pleasantries. Fresh clothes were neatly folded in a drawer, and the ghoul-stained ones had been conveniently taken away. He really should have showered before now, but it wouldn’t do to keep a guest waiting, so layers would have to do.

By the time he got downstairs, Sam had invited Ellen to settle in the library sitting room, where Dean had set up a careen of hot water for tea and instant coffee and some fruit, and fled the room. They didn’t frequently have guests, but it was often enough that both boys were familiar with the Conformist viewpoint that omegas were a taint on the Sabbath, and Dean made himself scarce accordingly. When John came trudging down the stairs she was already probing Sam’s skills, as best that could be done without the permanent magic that would violate the laws of the sacred day.

“Close your eyes and concentrate. I want you to picture an angel, whatever angels mean to you. See its overwhelming light, and incomprehensible sound, and impenetrable power, all emanating from God, all concentrated into something which occupies no space but still can be sensed. Can you picture it?” Ellen waved at John towards a nearby chair across form Sam, where he plopped himself down to watch with trepidation.

“Yes ma’am, I think so,” Sam said, his eyes resting closed.

“Don’t be wishy-washy about it, just imagine whatever the words provoke. Can you feel the concentrated power? Don’t let it leak out now. Can you hold it?”

“Yes.”

“Keep holding it. No space, remember; the angel’s only a pinpoint.” She reached over and took his hand, to press on the wall in his mind. Ellen had an excellent sense of extant energies in the mind, and she could assess his strength, detect cracks in his unsophisticated shielding, and tell whether there was anything demonic lingering in there. “You might feel a little pressure. Keep holding steady.”

The two of them sat perfectly still for a couple of minutes, without any sign of stress on either party. Ellen wasn’t pressing hard, John thought with relief. Just gently probing, feeling him out.

“Now drop your restraint,” Ellen said without warning. Sam twitched first, then they both shuddered and opened their eyes. Even a few feet away John could feel the pulse of unrestrained etheric energy branching out from the boy. From the brief taste, it didn’t seem touched by the demonic at all.

“Did that hurt you?” Sam asked softly. His pupils were a touch dilated, making his eyes look almost as dark as John’s.

Ellen shook her head and withdrew her hand with a sardonic smile. “No, honey, it takes a lot more than an untrained teenager to take me down. Now, let me ask you. What Bible verses are used to weaken demons?”

“Numbers 24-26, Lamech 5, Song 91.”

“Very good. Sing for me the first line of 91, as many versions as you know.”

Sam could rattle off a dozen different tunes for the old anti-demon psalm. John hadn’t yet taught him the difficult Amalekite melodies, instead waiting for his voice to settle out first, but Ellen seemed satisfied.

“Not bad. What are some signs of the difference between the spectral possession of a female omega versus an ordinary woman?”

“As the ghost or the possessed person?” Sam asked. Ellen waved a hand in ambiguity, so Sam continued. “If the omega is the spirit, they usually only possess individuals who were cruel to others in life, to try and force better behavior and repentance, so the signs are uncharacteristic submissiveness, self-harm, mutism, and xenokinesia from the omega sign instead of xenoglossia. As the possessed, I’m…not sure? The books don’t say what happens when an omega is possessed, if it’s any different form an alpha.” The words rushed out of him like he was reading straight out of a textbook, John mused, but they were correct. Layers of information shuffled in his head, untempered by actual experience.

“It can happen, but it doesn’t matter,” Ellen told him. “They don’t come to us unless forced to by their masters, and even in that case it’s best to find yourself an omega diviner and leave it to them. They take care of their own polluted souls.”

Sam’s brow wrinkled up into an impolite frown. “How do you know they have polluted souls? Maybe they just have their own rituals that work for them.”

“I know because I know. Don’t be short with me, boy, I’m the one quizzing you.” She took a long sip of the tea, and eyed him up for her next barrage. “Let me see. Close your eyes and take my hand again, and we’ll see how your rudimentary confining skills are. Picture a…”

“No,” John suddenly interrupted. They both looked over at him, surprised, as he hadn’t uttered a word since Ellen’s arrival. “I haven’t taught him the first precepts of boxing yet.”

“Well, why the hell not, John? He’s of age, and clearly has the focusing skills to practice without a summoning.”

John gave her a cool stare before shifting over to his son. “Sam, go help Dean set up midday. I’m sure Miss Ellen would prefer her lunch be minimally touched by an omega.”

Sam opened his mouth like he was about to object, then obviously thought better of it and pushed his long body off the chair. When he cleared through the kitchen door, John turned back to Ellen. “Good to see you, Ellen. Thanks for coming out all this way for only half a Sabbath.”

“Uh-huh. You gonna tell me why you haven’t taught a perfectly capable thirteen-year-old the first precepts yet? Even the bull-headed John Winchester can see he’s got the natural talent.”

“Between Mary and me, he’d have to have the luck of Job to _not_ have the talent. It’s been obvious since he was a barely out of diapers.”

“It’s been obvious every time I’ve laid eyes on him. Which hasn’t been much over the past six years.” Ellen flickered a glance around the crowded but tidy cabin library. “So what’s the problem then? Boy’s got enough book knowledge in here to attempt himself soon if you don’t take action. You still think he’s demon-tainted? That a simple imaginary box will crack the Earth like a walnut and pull us all down?”

“He _was_ demon-tainted,” John said softly. “There’s no question. I pulled that boy out of the blue fire and he was already halfway in hell and speaking in the Black Tongue. I almost released his soul. How the fuck a seven-year-old opened a breach like that, I still don’t know.” He laughed, bitterly, and shook his head. _“Natural talent_ , like there’s any doubt. But I can’t tell if his mind has healed over now. What did you see?”

“Nothing, John. Not one damn thing. Seems like an ordinary hunter kid, albeit one with excessive facts in his head. Not even a trace of bitterness.”

“Well, that’s something, I guess. I haven’t found anything in years, either.”

They both sat for a few seconds to sip their drinks, with John opting for the stronger coffee to wake himself up. Then Ellen ventured, “I didn’t come here just to assess your boy and drink omega-tinged tea. Bill and I have a proposal. Hear me out before you say no.”

“Doesn’t that sound promising,” John said, but then let her talk.

“We know you’re still looking for a way through to Mary. We know you’ve traveled over half of the continent a hundred times over, torturing the spirits for information. I can still smell the ghoul on you, and that was over a day ago.”

John shrugged. He’d prioritize a shower over a good fuck and sleep the next time around.

“We know you’ve been leaving Sam with that slave for weeks at a time. No wonder most of what he knows comes straight out of the books. He needs real practice, under good supervision. You are clearly too distracted to provide consistent instruction.”

“Are you suggesting I give my only remaining family to you?” John leaned forward and slammed the cup down on the tray. A distraction from the truth, which was that Sam did need focused attention, soon. But there was always a new breach to chase, another shot at releasing his wife’s doomed soul.

Ellen didn’t blink at the anger, but only snorted back. “You’re welcome to come too, pissiness and all. We’ve got a small trailer home out on the back of our property, room enough for both you and Sam. Then he’s welcome to have meals with us and train while you’re off on your tragic quest.”

“I see.” He relaxed, seeing where this was going. “And proximity to Jo, that’s merely a happy coincidence in this arrangement?”

“Why John Winchester, you have a corrupted mind. She’s only eleven years old, I’m not off to plan the wedding yet. Although I did hear how your mother made a similar deal with the Campbells after your daddy disappeared, and look how that turned out. Luck favors the prepared.”

“Samuel Campbell hated my guts.”

“He _pretended_ to hate your guts, and it all went according to a perfectly well-oiled plan. Like Mary Campbell was ever going to fall for someone her daddy approved of?”

He felt the tension bleed out of him, and had to laugh at yet another truth. “I vigorously dispute this interpretation of events, but she was a firecracker.”

“That she was. Listen, John, your boy’s got power. Don’t squander it away while chasing some hopeless obsession. He’s only going to grow up once, let us help you.”

“Mmm, is there a catch to all this community benevolence?”

Ellen leveled him a long look. “You know you need to get rid of the omega. I can’t have him on my property, and a creature like that’s not a good influence on you either. Surely you’ve gotten your money’s worth out of him by now.”

“Considering I didn’t even pay for him, I’d say so. But Sam’s rather fond of the boy.”

“He’s young, he’ll get over it. And your slave ‘boy’ is hardly a boy. I got a good look at him before he scurried off like a mouse, and that face could glamour a blind woman. Don’t tell me you can’t get a pretty penny for him.” She shifted in her seat, bearing down on him with her eyes. “Unless of course, you’re the one who’s been glamoured first.”

John never was one to flinch, even from harsh honesty. “I still have enough wits left in me to sell him if its necessary. There’s no point in throwing away valuable property, but I’ll consider your words. This week, though, I’m taking both boys down to New Nederland for a demon case at a boarding school. Dean’s still useful to me yet.”

Ellen’s mouth dropped open at the pronouncement. “You haven’t taught Sam to box, and yet you’ll dangle him out as _bait?_ _”_

“Of course not,” John snapped. “The demon’s originating in the servants’ quarters, so the _omega_ is bait. Sam knows how to get away from trouble and report back, he’ll be perfectly fine.”

“Playing with fire, John Winchester. Blue fire. Get rid of that omega before he infects your soul. Hell, you could even free him if your conscience is bothering you.”

“It’s not. A slave’s a slave, and that’s all he was ever fated to be.”

They both turned then as a light knock came from the kitchen door, followed by Sam tentatively poking his head into the room. “Midday’s ready,” he said, and by ‘ready’ John knew that he meant that Dean had left the house to let them eat the meal in peace. The omega had one his innumerable opportunities to run, and John realized that at that particular moment, he didn’t care to give chase. He would never free Dean, but if the boy decided to free himself, John could see himself turning a blind eye. It was idle speculation though, because Dean had all the running wrung out of him long ago. He’d always come back to John and Sam, through some perverse mix of loyalty and duty instead of the fear manifested in most slaves. That fact seemed worth more than a heap of gold, or the offer of friendship from other hunters, or a few more drops of purity prevented from dripping out of John’s long-battered soul.

 


End file.
